Rick Perry Record Swiped By David Axelrod (VIDEO)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's political team is taking an early swipe at Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who's set to officially dive into the presidential race on Saturday.

Part of Perry's pitch is the Texas economy, which has fared better than most statesduring the nation's economic troubles. Obama senior political adviser David Axelrod says Texas benefited from booming oil prices and increased military spending on two wars. He said Friday on CBS' "Early Show," "I don't think many people would attribute it to the leadership of the governor down there."

Axelrod also criticized the wider Republican field in Thursday night's debate, saying they were more interested in pledging allegiance to the tea party's anti-tax values than in helping middle-class Americans.

In a separate interview with ABC News, Axelrod also took aim at Perry's record on education and health care.

“When you examine the entire record what’s happened to education in that state, what’s happened to health care in that state, it’s a record of decimation not of progress,” Axelrod said.

On Thursday, a spokesman to Perry confirmed that he would announce his candidacy while visiting South Carolina on Saturday.

Despite skepticism from Democrats, the AP reports that Perry's record in Texas could pose a particular threat to frontrunning GOP candidates such as Mitt Romney.

He is credible on issues social conservatives care about and sent a strong message to evangelicals last weekend by hosting a national prayer rally in Houston that drew roughly 30,000 Christians. He also has overseen a period of job growth in his state, making Texas one of the few states in the country that have posted economic gains and giving him the opportunity to challenge Romney's pitch as the jobs candidate.

Perry's devout Christianity could also serve as a rival factor to the candidacies of Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, as his entrance would give faith-based voters in Iowa another high-powered contender to consider.

And Perry's forthcoming presence in the 2012 campaign hasn't gone unnoticed by conservatives who, like Democrats, are critical of his record. Former Republican congressman from Colorado Tom Tancredo and members of the Tea Party have taken to the internet to attack the Texas Governor for not being tough enough on immigration.

WATCH:

Comments

[spainellis]

07:50 PM on 08/13/2011

We need to let Obama finish up for the next 4 years. His leadership is getting tuned up from all his aces in the whole.
Leadership isn't born it is made.
We don't need any change right now. I bet it takes well over a year for things to work in unison after a leadership change.

I haven't heard anything good about Perry

[falconfordd]

02:23 PM on 08/13/2011

I think the Republican party is trying to get Obama relected so they can spend 4 more years trying to destroy us. How can they put up such poor opposition to someone who is not doing so good. None of these people are electable countrywide. How else can it be expained. If Sarah jumps in we will know for sure.

[mgcanfi]

06:49 PM on 08/13/2011

Did you see this? It was on The Onion. Sometimes I wonder.
http://www.theonion.com/video/gop-supports-obama-for-2012-we-need-more-time-to-c,21130/

[jsrl317]

11:36 AM on 08/13/2011

Well, while I do not back Obama, I know he has an excellent team to get him re-elected. He's really going to eat the GOP alive.

[xmaskarol]

11:25 AM on 08/13/2011

Rick, America is not ready for a pro-religous, right-wing, secessionist.

Think about what we have read, and heard, coming out of this shills mouth, he can-not and will not be America's next President. He is a big fish in a Texas size pond!

[Your name here]

07:36 PM on 08/14/2011

He's a brown trout.

[smilingasa]

10:07 AM on 08/13/2011

Slick Rick!

"Snake oil salesman"!

[Ryan Kenneth Leddy]

09:42 AM on 08/13/2011

The Texas economy numbers are deceiving at best.

1. Texas has the highest percentage of it's workforce working at or below minimum wage at 9.5%.
2. In 2009 Rick Perry vowed that over his dead body would he receive a handout from the federal government. Facing a 6.6 billion dollar in the 2010-2011 budget, Perry held out his hands and snatched up a 6.4 billion dollar stimulus package from the Government.
3. With no stimulus money to lean on for the 2012-2013 budget, Texas faces a $27 billion dollar billion dollar shortfall. Instead of doing the logical things and taxing the multi-billion dollar oil and farming companies in Texas, Perry instead opted for massive cuts to essential programs.
4. Gone is $4 billion dollars in funding for k-12 education. It is expected that 50,000+ teachers will lose their jobs due to this new budget despite the fact that the Texas school system will be growing up 80,000 students.
5. $10 billion in cuts to for child support services, even though 25% of Texas children live are poverty.
6. The Grand Finale is is the under-funding of the state's medicaid programs to the tune of $4.8 billion dollars. Texas, leads the nation in the percentage of its population without any healthcare at 27 percent.

Rick Perry: another typical crazy Christian conservative who only gives a crap about the filthy rich...errrrr....Job Creators.

[Khadijah Abdu-Salaam]

06:39 PM on 08/13/2011

Let me correct your errors:

1) The Rio Grande Valley is one of the last pockets of true poverty. It skews all Texas statistics downward, meaning that the rest of the state is operating at even better economic levels.

2) This has nothing to do with the Texas economic numbers. It is an issue with Perry.

3) The Texas budget was balanced for the next two years as of June 30. The schools took a much smaller hit than the liberal critics of Texas would have liked. There is still 6B in the states Rainy Day Fund for when then next unfunded mandate from Washington (Medicaid expansion) hits in the next biennium.

4) Education took a 6-7% hit. Most districts will see few to no loss of teaching personell. Even in the massive Houston Independent School district, the budget caused a net loss of about 412 teachers, which is about one teacher per school campus. (What was discovered was that status quo for Texas schools was that only about 50% of revenues was going to classroom instruction.)

5) Texas doesn't break out child HHS from adult, so estimates in this area are impossible. Texas HHS took at 17B hit total; it's up to the dept head to allot the cuts.

6) See comment on the Rio Grande Valley. Please remember that EVERY SINGLE STATE has had to make difficult cuts in its budget, and perhaps you'll make more mature comments about any single state.

[lNSCOUT]

09:40 AM on 08/13/2011

2012 MORE TAXES LESS TEXAS!

[xmaskarol]

11:26 AM on 08/13/2011

Nicely , and well said...I thank you and my dog thanks you...

[Philip Bailey]

06:01 AM on 08/13/2011

Reasons for Obama's reelection 3 wars, more federal spending, gas prices are double what they were when he was elected, billionaires and millionaires giving to his campaign, massive job losses, no reform of his banking campaign supporters on Wall Street and finally a down grade in the credit rating...I would be attacking anyone with a better economic record too!

[jsrl317]

11:39 AM on 08/13/2011

Too bad there isn't anyone with a better economic record. But there is a secessionist, there is someone who has grown minimal-wage jobs in the service sector, there is a state who has abysmal health care.

We've done the Texas two-step too many times. You GOPbaggers are in for a big surprise in 2012, and not a good one. Ask Scott Walker. Hell, I am not even voting for this President and even I know that.

[DEMatHEART]

02:11 PM on 08/13/2011

Reasons for Obama's reelection: To reclaim the country from Grover Norquist - the real cause of the credit downgrade.

[Sisa]

11:33 PM on 08/12/2011

And so another villain casts his lot with Mordor.

[smilingasa]

10:08 AM on 08/13/2011

Slick Rick!

[hetrose]

04:07 PM on 08/13/2011

Throw the Ring into the fire Frodo!

[johnwerneken]

11:32 PM on 08/12/2011

Just what we don't need: another shirt-sleve-emblem-wearing pseudo-Christian

[ssaintc]

10:17 PM on 08/12/2011

3 words.....NO NEW TEXANS!

[PunKinPai]

10:56 PM on 08/12/2011

Oh, FANNED!

[thejeffersonlee]

11:20 PM on 08/12/2011

Texas has progressives, and liberal Democrats, too, broseph.

[Ryan Kenneth Leddy]

09:26 AM on 08/13/2011

And they all live in Austin, broseph.

[ssaintc]

10:14 PM on 08/12/2011

Why would a man who hates America enough to want to secede from it want to be it's President?

[stape45]

10:35 PM on 08/12/2011

Guess he hates it enough to want to destroy it. That's undoubtedly what he would do.

[AAA AAA]

10:43 PM on 08/12/2011

By the time he gets to the Oval Office, Obama will have already destroyed what is left of a great nation.

[tamias2]

09:53 PM on 08/12/2011

This website is a joke. I make a legitimate comment about Texas, Perry, jobs, etc... and somehow it never gets posted. All this site has become is a bunch of like minded, delusional progressives sitting around debating each other on why the rest of the United States doesn't see things your way. You guys are laughing stocks, just like this website.

[Major Nikon]

10:35 PM on 08/12/2011

Your rambling comment did get posted, genius, and if you'd actually bothered to read and comprehend the rules you might see more of them posted.

Cheers!

[Free4all52]

11:05 PM on 08/12/2011

YOU are a joke!!

[mpilkanis]

09:30 PM on 08/12/2011

To my knowledge there has been only one President from the Great State of Texas. For you GOP slopes, the name was Lyndon Baines Johnson and it it weren't for him, I'd say TX is nothing more than a rather large, dry, brown spot just north of the Rio Grande.

[stape45]

09:57 PM on 08/12/2011

Shhh! Don't say that too loudly. (Dubya thinks he's a native Texan.)

[xmaskarol]

11:36 AM on 08/13/2011

And we know he is a blue-blood, Connecticut bred, Yale and Harvard educated, national guard airplane flyin' keep me out of the war daddy...son-of-a -president-president.

[Paulie21]

10:34 PM on 08/12/2011

SO you wouldn't mind if I give it back to Mexico? I'm making a deal to give them back Texas and arizona if they take them I was going to throw in Florida as well.

[AAA AAA]

10:39 PM on 08/12/2011

And we are planning on giving New York, and all east coast states back to England. Things are going so well there right now. The East coast dimwits should fit in quite well.

[thejeffersonlee]

11:31 PM on 08/12/2011

Being a progressive Democrat doesn't mean I can't take offense to that; nor does it mean that I like being messed with and less than any Repubgelical Texan in this state.

[tamias2]

09:18 PM on 08/12/2011

I find it so hilarious how many progressives are outright haters of Texas. Texas is the one state that has created jobs in this horrific economy. No, dimwitted progressives, they are not all energy and defense jobs, only about 10-15% of them fall into those categories.

Texas creates jobs because the political environment is jobs/business friendly. Low taxes on businesses, very low governmental regulation, right-to-work, tort reform... these are the things that new businesses are looking for when they are considering where to set up shop. You only have to compare the situations in California and Texas to understand what is needed to create jobs.

California - high taxes, very high regulation, union-friendly... businesses are fleeing en-masse therefore no jobs.

Texas - low taxes, low regulation, anti-union, tort-reform... businesses are flocking to the state which equals more jobs.

No matter how you head-in-the-sand progressives want to spin it, these are the facts. That is why the state of California sent representatives to Texas to see what they are doing right.

No matter how much you progressive whine and cry, the facts are that Perry has been at the helm as Texas transformed into a jobs friendly state where businesses and population is streaming in at a rapid clip.

[Paulie21]

10:35 PM on 08/12/2011

Stay there, then. And when you're daughter is knocked up or your son wants to marry his boyfriend, send them to NY. We will happily take their money!

[AAA AAA]

10:40 PM on 08/12/2011

If his son wants to marry his boyfriend, he will have to move to New York. But they won't have any money and New York will be supporting them. But it is a great idea.

[Free4all52]

11:19 PM on 08/12/2011

I am a Texan, and I know plenty of Texans that are not enamored with Rick Perry. I don't think Americans will vote for another Texas Governor after what George W. did to the country. There's no way Perry could win. Many parts of the country won't vote for him. He will lose.

[Chico Elcheapo]

07:40 AM on 08/13/2011

'
Yeah!!!

All those bad things W did to the country like low unemployment (we can't have that!!1), a BOOMING economy until DemocRATS took over in 2007, kicking Taliban and al-qaida tail, making us safer from terrorism.

Bad, bad things under Bush, sure!!!

'