Thread: Obama lands in Austin, confers briefly with Gov. Perry

President Obama lands in Austin, confers briefly with Gov. Perry
12:14 PM CT

01:25 PM CDT on Monday, August 9, 2010
By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
tgillman@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – Even as President Barack Obama flew to Texas today for high-dollar fund-raising events, the White House sought to keep him above the tumble of Texas politics.

Aides downplayed Obama's plans for a brief airport chat about border security with Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who has been an outspoken critic of the president.

They also downplayed the decision by Perry's November election opponent, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White, to remain far from Obama during the president's one-day visit.

"He definitely does not take that as an insult," White House spokesman Bill Burton insisted aboard Air Force One en route to Austin.

White, the former mayor of Houston, said he was honoring longstanding campaign commitments today to be in Midland, Abilene, and Johnson County while Obama will visit Austin and Dallas.

White said that if the president wanted to talk, he was welcome to pick up a phone.

That's not going to happen, said Burton. "There are no plans to call him, no."

Obama landed at Austin's Bergstrom International Airport , headed to a fund-raiser at the Four Seasons Hotel, where he's expected to raise as much as $1 million for the Democratic Party. He will also speak at the University of Texas about the importance of higher education to economic growth.

Perry was waiting at the airport, having secured face time with the president last Friday.

"You know, these tarmac greets with elected officials – Gov. Perry will be there. It will probably be a very brief conversation," Burton said before the two leaders met. He added that Obama's schedule today didn't allow for a longer conversation that Perry wanted, to press for more National Guard troops along the border than the 1,200 Obama activated in May.

Perry began clapping when Obama emerged from the doorway of Air Force One.

"I've been to probably a hundred of these," Burton said from 30 feet away. "That's the first time I've seen a governor applaud."

The president and governor shook hands warmly and stood face to face for 20 or 30 seconds, chatting. Obama clasped his right arm.

Then, as the president moved down the line to other greeters – Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, state Sen. Kirk Watson and state Rep. Mark Strama – Perry pulled a letter from his pocket and handed it to White House counselor Valerie Jarrett, who came down the stairs behind the president with Ron Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative and former Dallas mayor.

The letter from Perry asked the president to recognize the urgent circumstances on the border with Mexico and to send 1,000 additional troops – on top of the 286 promised by the administration – to combat gangs, drugs, and human trafficking.

“The deployment of just 286 National Guard personnel along the 1,200 mile Texas-Mexico border is clearly insufficient,â€

Perry letter to Obama
Gov. Rick Perry's letter to President Obama on border security. Perry tried to give this letter directly to Obama, who wouldn't take it. But it was delivered to somone else in Obama's party, according to state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin. The White House press pool report says the letter was handed to Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett


http://blogs.chron.com/texaspolitics/ar ... er_to.html



Letter here: PDF File
http://www.divshare.com/download/12229272-223

Originally Posted by jamesw62

Perry letter to Obama
Gov. Rick Perry's letter to President Obama on border security. Perry tried to give this letter directly to Obama, who wouldn't take it. But it was delivered to somone else in Obama's party, according to state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin. The White House press pool report says the letter was handed to Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett


http://blogs.chron.com/texaspolitics/ar ... er_to.html



Letter here: PDF File
http://www.divshare.com/download/12229272-223

Obama doesn't care what Perry wrote in the letter. BO has an agenda and it doesn't include securing the border. He's got to go.

Since Gov. Rick Perry is also a globalist who supports open borders, much of this unfortunately is just polital posturing: Perry no more than President Obama or President Bush before him wants or expects our border to be secured or our immigration laws enforced.

Sound liek Obama pretty much thumbed his nose at Slick Rick and instead just came to Texas to take more money for the Democrats.