Perry’s Controversial Money Man

[highplainsdem]

Source: The Daily Beast

During the last weeks of his 1998 race for Texas lieutenant governor, Rick Perry was tied with Democrat John Sharp, and many expected him to lose. That’s when James Leininger, an archconservative San Diego multimillionaire, and two other Texas tycoons stepped forward with a $1.1 million loan for a last-minute media blitz. It was more than 10 percent of the total Perry raised for that race, and it probably was decisive—Perry won with 50.4 percent of the vote. “I congratulate Leininger,” Sharp later told The Austin Chronicle. “He wanted to buy the reins of state government. And by God, he got them.”

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Initially, he got involved in politics to promote tort reform, but he quickly threw his weight behind social conservative causes as well. He’s been a particular foe of secular public education, pouring millions into primary challenges against Republicans who failed to support school vouchers, and funding school board candidates who push creationism and a Christian nationalist view of American history. On the national level, he was one of the founders of Patrick Henry University, a college for evangelical home-schooled students.

These days, we’re used to fierce ideological battles in Texas about the teaching of evolution or the role of the Enlightenment in American history. But some in Texas say it wasn’t always thus. “Dr. Leininger has been instrumental in transforming the Texas State Board of Education and the state capitol into major battlegrounds in the nation’s culture wars,” concluded the Texas Freedom Network, a group that favors separation of church and state, in a 2006 report about the Texas religious right.

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Perry also has increased Leininger’s influence the old-fashioned way—by appointing his allies to state positions. He made Kinetic Concepts public affairs director Diane Rath chair of the Texas Workforce Commission, and appointed the company’s former CEO, Raymond Hannigan, to the Texas Board of Health. Susan Weddington, a former Leininger employee who went on to become chair of the Texas GOP, is now president and CEO of the OneStar foundation, a nonprofit created by Perry that administers the state’s faith-based grant-making.

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Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/06/rick-perry-s-money-man-james-leininger-pushes-right-wing-religious-agenda.html

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In return, Leininger created a "church-based political machine" for Perry.

The more we learn about Perry, the more corrupt and dangerous he sounds.

[Hubert Flottz]

1. K&R

Perry is a snake!

[Javaman]

2. My question is: why wasn't there anyone to help Sharp?

We want Dems to win, yet were are the deep pockets to make it happen?

If we are going to compete, the wealthy on the left (yes, there are wealthy on the left) need to step forward.