Republican Candidates Respond to Offensive Name for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s Hunting Camp

No, They Did not Say This, But They Could Have

In the past few days stories have come out about the name that was used for a hunting camp leased by Texas Gov. Rick Perry.  The name includes a reference to a highly offense term for African Americans, and Mr. Perry has claimed that he tried to obliterate that name on a rock outside the entrance to the camp when he first started using it.  There are conflicting stories about how true that is, and the issue has created major problems for Mr. Perry

Of Interest to The Dismal Political Economist is the response of other Republican candidates.  Mr. Cain has strongly condemned the actions, for obvious reasons, although he now is reported to be softening his remarks because Rush Limbaugh told him to. Mr. Romney has made a very short comment on the issue,

I think most people think it’s offensive.” . . .He declined to answer other questions, saying those were for Team Perry.

obviously not wanting to lose the all important “white supremacist” vote in a close nominating process.

So The Dismal Political Economist is somewhat stunned by the lack of detailed response from the candidates and to fill that void here is what he thinks the candidates would say if they were to answer questions on the issue.

MITT ROMNEY:

 “Well, this is not right for Massachusetts, in fact I tried hard to make sure everyone in Massachusetts was required not to say that word, but some Federal judge invoked some obscure part of the Constitution and wouldn’t let me.  Just another example of Obama’s judicial activism.

 But it would be wrong for other states to require this just because Massachusetts did, each state should be allowed to use all the offensive words they want.  The Federal government should not get involved.

Furthermore, my position, as you can see from my book, the paperback one that I changed, not the hard copy that had things in it that are now not good for me politically, is No Apology.  If I am elected I am not going to go around the country apologizing for people in Texas who have the right to do things differently than Massachusetts.  Barack Obama would want us to apologize to everyone, but that is not the America I love.

I believe in American Exceptionalism, and the right of the people of Texas to be exceptionally offensive.”

NEWT GINGRICH:

“This is just another example of good Americans having things dictated to them by Washington.  Even though no one in the Federal government has said anything about this, you know they want to stop this in the name of being politically correct.”

My new ‘Contract with America’ will contain 27 ideas of how to deal with this problem, 28 of which will not make any sense whatsoever.”

MICHELE BACHMANN

“A mother came up to me and said that someone told her she had to make her children stop using this term, and one year later all them became mentally retarded. 

I think it is just not American for Gov. Perry to paint over a term that he finds offensive, but that other Texans may be perfectly comfortable with.  We cannot have government obliterating racially offensive terms on rocks, next thing they will want to force innocent 12 year old girls to be in school.”

RICK SANTORUM

“If anybody is going to be charged with using offensive terms in this campaign, then it should be me.  Why is Mr. Perry getting all the attention when I have been insulting and degrading to the Gay community, and nobody seems to care?  Just because my campaign for President is going nowhere doesn’t mean I cannot be as offensive as the next candidate.

RON PAUL

“I am from Texas.  If the rest of the country did things the way we do them in Texas we wouldn’t have this problem.  What is the problem again?”

JON HUNTSMAN

“Am I still running?  Somebody needs to tell me these things”