Who says politics can’t be good for business?

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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25 Responses

  1. Tod Kelly says:

    And the comments about how E.D. is really a tool of the far left should begin right about…Report

  2. Jaybird says:

    Jeb Bush is available for VP!

    Perry/Bush 2012!Report

  3. Tod Kelly says:

    For myself, I’m trying to keep from making a decision one way or another about the guy, since to date he’s been more of a Name Whispered than a real guy, if you know what I mean. And as far as the whole saying you’re a Champion of Small Government and then using government growth as a way to secure power… well that’s just the GOPs thing, I think. It seems unfair to point this out about Perry and ignore it with, like, every other serious candidate or sitting governor.

    But still…

    I know what you mean about him having this thing that makes you uneasy that you can’t put your finger on. I feel this too.Report

  4. Mike Schilling says:

    A Mississippi-based poultry company run by Joe Sanderson, who gave $165,000 to Perry, received a $500,000 grant from a state business incentive fund championed by Perry to open a chicken hatchery and processing plant in Waco.

    And people call Warren Buffet a smart investor.Report

  5. Robert Cheeks says:

    E.D. may be a ‘tool’ but I’m not so sure it’s for the left.
    Compared to Barry and his politics of poverty (PoP), the gubernor of Texas is a ‘man of the people’, a heroic defender of liberty, and better looking than Mitt.Report

  6. Michael Drew says:

    I agree that, finally, in a generic way, Bush always did want to do the right thing. I can’t say I always thought that, but I came to think it. But I think that only to the extent that it is true as an empty conceptual construct; I think there was essentially no moral content to that desire to do right. I think this because I think that because he came during his middle-aged-adolescence period (i.e. the vulnerable years after he gave up drinking) to adopt a morally defective worldview that manifestly led him to make disastrous policy choices when he was given the reigns of greatest power; and he lacked the discipline and moral reasoning skills to lead himself out of that philosophical morass before letting them lead him to guide his country into a deep, deep real-world hole.

    So at some level, yes, he deeply wanted to do right, but generically desiring to do right in high(set) political while being unwilling or unable to do the hard work to bring your vision of what is right reasonably into line with what will actually avoid causing untold harm to, first, your constituents, but also the world at large, is not enough in my view to give credit for actually wanting to do right in a meaningful way.

    To really in fact want to do right, you have to try hard to do the math right and get an answer that is in the ballpark. On the issues George W. Bush chose to make the center of his presidency, I don’t think he did his work hard enough nor well enough to be given credit for truly wanting to do the right things. He only wanted to do the right thing as a matter of tautology, of a=a. Everyone should want to do the right thing, so he did. The question is what that means.Report

    • James Cameron in reply to Michael Drew says:

      I interpreted it as a mater of integrity. He was very sincerely wrong, therefore you feel bad for him, like you do for a nice guy failing an assignment in class. He tries so hard, he just doesn’t get it.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Michael Drew says:

      “To really in fact want to do right, you have to try hard to do the math right and get an answer that is in the ballpark.”

      This sounds a lot like “I know you mean well but unless you agree with me you’re wrong”.Report

  7. DensityDuck says:

    I don’t really get this whole “Texas took Federal money! Perry took campaign donations!” thing.

    Do you also tell vegans that they’re hypocrites because their macrophages eat bacteria?Report

    • RTod in reply to DensityDuck says:

      I don’t think Erik is complaining about accepting donations. I think it’s the giving huge amounts of public cash to those that did that he has concerns about. This seems a pretty non-partisan thing to not like.Report

  8. I think any attempt at calling that video a ‘threat’ is just ludicrous.Report

  9. gschu says:

    Your line that, ‘there’s just something about him’, brings to mind a Frontline I watched recently covering the Willingham execution. In the clip someone off camera asks Perry about the new report by independent arson investigators saying that the fire was not arson, to which Rick Perry replies, (something along the lines of) ‘He was a bad guy, the kind of guy that beats his wife, and he’s ended up were bad people should be’. This, to me, gets at what I find so troubling about him. He has a simplicity in his worldview, mixed with an unwarranted confidence, that can lead someone to execute a possibly innocent man and go through little or no soul searching.

    Couple that with his decision to fire the head of the investigative committee that was tasked with looking at the arson science as used in Texas right before they were to release their report, and it becomes hard not to despise the man.

    I also realize that I have no way of knowing whether Perry undergoes any soul searching after agreeing to executions. It’s pure speculation, so do with it what you will.Report

  10. MFarmer says:

    I don’t support Perry — I think he’s a Rightist statist — but if the Left doesn’t stick to the issues and continues their politics of personal destruction, it’s going backfire and elevate Perry among those who already hate the media.Report