Rick Perry's Big Saturday Bomb

Remember back when Governor Rick Perry proudly announced that there would be a day of prayer and reflection in August, that he wanted to fill up Reliant Stadium in Houston, and that he was inviting the other 49 governors across the nation to it? Perry then put himself in the center of it, named it "The Response," produced videos promoting it, and sent out his minions to tout it.

Well, the response to The Response has been tepid, at best.


The event, to be held later this week, only has 8,000 RSVPs, in a stadium that holds 70,000. Only one of the nation's other 49 governors, Sam Brownback of Kansas, said he'd come, and now there are rumors coming out of the Kansas statehouse that he may back out. Recently, even Rick Perry has been distancing himself from the Rick Perry campaign event that Rick Perry created to promote Rick Perry, saying that he may not even speak. He's joked that he may be an usher.

It's painfully obvious that Perry's handlers are using God as a political prop for Perry's Presidential campaign, which at best might be seen as offensive to some. At worst, the event - which looks from this angle to be a wash-out likely to generate bad press for Perry on the eve of his campaign roll-out - is a major distraction from the core message which gives Perry his only hope of catching on as a Presidential contender: the Texas economy.

To the 8,000 people, undoubtedly sincere, who have RSVPed to attend the event, I would say this: Governor Perry has used the members of the Texas Legislature as extras in his political movie for years. Even some of his closest Republican allies in the House and Senate have grown weary of it. His success on that front undoubtedly leads him to believe that he can use you in the same way.

At least 48 governors, and maybe 49, decided they have better things to do this Saturday than be bit players in Perry's movie. There will be at least 62,000 empty seats at Reliant that day, undoubtedly hidden behind a sea of rented pipe-and-drape camouflage, representing tens of thousands of others who reached the same conclusion. Meanwhile, more than 50,000 people - more than eight times the number attending Perry's event - have RSVPed to a humorous response to The Response, the Day of Debauchery and Gluttony event which was playfully initiated on Facebook.
http://www.lettersfromtexas.com/

Maybe they should rename the venue the Unreliant Stadium. ;-)

It'll save everyone here in the real world a lot of grief if that happens.