EoT: Meet Rick Perry, the Medicare Candidate
Eyes on Texas, a roundup of news, columns and features about the state, from media around the world.
Rick Perry is playing the age card as he lays the groundwork for a likely campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
On a recent trip to New Hampshire, the former Texas governor– who turned 65 in March – dissed the crop of younger candidates, including U.S. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky (53), Marco Rubio of Florida (43) and Ted Cruz of Texas (44).
“If you’re flying from Boston to London, do you want to fly with someone that gives a heck of a good presentation on aerodynamics, why the airplane stays in the air—I mean, have you on the edge of your seat with excitement? But they have 150 hours of flying time?” Perry said at a meeting with local businessmen, Bloomberg reported. “Or do you go with the grizzled old 20,000-hour captain who’s taken that airplane back and forth thousands of times safely? That’s the juxtaposition of the young, inexperienced senator versus a skilled experience executive.”
When asked whether his age might become a campaign issue, Perry said, “I’m just filling out my Medicare card program, so I hope they don’t hold my age against me.”
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Something really, really special must be on the menu at the Ted Cruz household. The Republican senator from Texas is asking donors to rustle up $500,000 from their friends and associates for his presidential campaign. The reward: a quarterly dinner at home in Houston with him and his wife Heidi.
Cruz also promises coveted access to people who ante up for the dinners, the New York Daily News reported.
“Those supporters will be called the campaign’s founders,” the Daily News reported. Other perks will include access to the candidate and his inner circle of advisers as well as having the title of national finance co-chairman.
According to a fundraising document obtained by the Associated Press, other levels in the Cruz donor hierarchy include statesmen ($200,000), generals ($100,000), and federalists ($50,000).
By Laura Boria