I don't have a dog in this fight, but...

[Lamplighter]

Now a another bit about Perry...
NY Times
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: October 14, 2011

Perry Presents a Jobs and Energy Proposal With an Oil and Gas Industry Sound

WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. —
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas released a long-promised jobs and energy proposal
Friday that resembles a wish list for the oil and gas industry, ...<snip>

His energy plan has four parts:
-use executive decrees to allow new or additional drilling in Alaska,
....the Gulf of Mexico, and federal lands in the West;
-roll back or weaken environmental regulations;
-dismantle the E.P.A. and replace it with a “scaled-down agency”;
- and reshape subsidies and tax credits for different parts of the energy industry,
in what appears would be a move away from renewable energy.
<snip>

While he promoted the potential of natural gas in the giant rock formation
known as the Marcellus Shaleto create a quarter-million new jobs,
some experts noted that federal researchers recently cut estimates
of undiscovered and technically recoverable gas in the shale formation
by almost 80 percent — calling into question the reliability of any long-range
predictions about the amount of energy available for extraction there.
<snip>
But critics said the plan — much of which tracks a recent
proposal by an oil industry trade group — would make little headway toward either goal,
and they feared that it would imperil drinking water supplies and hurt the environment.

And besides all that:
[Perry] made questionable assertions, including one —
that the E.P.A. had never found a case of unsafe hydraulic fracturing of natural gas —
that was plainly false

Environmental Working Group
August 3, 2011

EPA Traced Pollution of Underground Water Supply to Hydraulic Fracturing
The EPA concluded in a 1987 report to Congress that the process contaminated
Parsons' water well with fracturing fluid.

.

[Lamplighter]

BostonGlobe.com
By Charles Babington
Associated Press / October 15, 2011

Romney's rise challenges tea party's clout in GOP

WASHINGTON
Mitt Romney's early success in the Republican presidential race
is challenging the tea party's clout.
Will it continue to pull the GOP sharply right? Will it slowly fade?
Or merge with mainstream Republican elements
in a nod to pragmatism, something it's hardly known for?

On the surface, Romney's strength seems at odds with the tea party's
fiery success in ousting Republicans seen as compromisers,
and in making the House GOP caucus more ideological,
even when its leaders plead for flexibility.

Romney defends the government's 2008 bank bailouts,
plus the mandated health insurance he initiated as Massachusetts governor.
He says he can work with "good Democrats."
Although he later changed, Romney once supported abortion rights,
gun control and gay rights.

These positions run counter to the beliefs and goals of many
tea party activists scattered throughout the country.
Yet Romney is faring better in polls, fundraising and debates
than are contenders with stronger tea party credentials,
including Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry.
<snip>

And besides all that:
The worst thing you can find about Romney is that when traveling
he puts his dog on the top of the car.
The nest worst thing is that he is like a stone --- in stone soup.

[Lamplighter]

Herman Cain is making the news circuits and being asked about his campaign finances and support.
Cain has not yet mentioned the Koch brothers or Americans for Prosperity.
Here's some background...
Washington Post
By Associated Press, Sunday, October*16, 6:54*AM

Herman Cain’s deep ties to Koch brothers key to campaign

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has cast himself as the outsider,
the pizza magnate with real-world experience who will bring fresh ideas to the nation’s capital.
But Cain’s economic ideas, support and organization have close ties to two billionaire brothers
who bankroll right-leaning causes through their group Americans for Prosperity.

Cain’s campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity,
or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch,
which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending.
Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his “9-9-9” plan
to rewrite the nation’s tax code
And his years of speaking at AFP events have given the businessman and radio host a network of loyal grassroots fans

and besides all that:
When asked on Meet The Press for a difference between himself and Romney, Cain responded:
"... He's a Wall Street candidate, I'm more of a Main Street candidate."

Cain was on the Board of Directors from 1992,
and was Chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank from 1995 to 1996.
He later opposed a call for an audit of the Fed, which he now denies
.