Gov. Perry attacks national Democrats

Houston Chronicle:

He skipped Texas' GOP straw poll, but Gov. Rick Perry delivered a red-meat speech at the California Republican Party convention scoffing at Al Gore over global warming and taking on Nancy Pelosi and the Clintons.

"I've heard Al Gore talk about man-made global warming so much that I'm starting to think that his mouth is the leading source of all that supposedly deadly carbon dioxide," Perry said in last Friday's prepared speech, a week after the presidential straw poll in Fort Worth.

Pelosi?

"Let's make sure the Nancy Pelosi speakership is just an asterisk in the history of our country."

Hillary Clinton's effort to follow her husband as president?

"We must move heaven and earth to make sure we never see another Clinton in the White House."

California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged a centrist approach?

"California is too important ... to allow a bankrupt, liberal political philosophy to dominate the direction of this state."

Perry promised more of the same in 2008.

"I may not be on the ballot, but I will campaign next year like I am, in Texas, in California, and anywhere else I can spread the word," he said in his speech.

...

Ron Nehring, California Republican Party chairman, said Perry was invited to the convention with several other governors and got a "tremendous" reception, an opinion echoed in news accounts that said Perry's conservative message got a far more enthusiastic response than Schwarzenegger's speech.

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We need to see more such speeches from Republicans. The Democrats deserve to be put on the defensive for their bad policy choices and their bad judgment on the issues. Perry has not been this aggressive in the past, but it will help him raise his profile which will help Texas.