Gov. Perry Declares Calderon 'President-Elect'

Governor Perry must enjoy putting his foot in his mouth because he does it quite often. Yesterday, it happened again. When speaking at the border governor's conference yesterday, Perry said he had talked with "President-Elect" Felipe Calderon of Mexico. After the statement, a reporter from Mexico asked Perry if that meant he recognized Calderon as the winner of the Mexican presidential election. Perry replied, "When we have an election in the United States and the individual who gets the most votes, we refer to them as the president elect."

That statement might not seem as stupid as it is, if it wasn't for two facts that Perry either doesn't know, or is ignoring. First, it is just not true that this happens in the United States. A person in the U.S. is not designated as "president-elect" until it is determined that he has been elected. Otherwise, Al Gore would have been our "president-elect", because he got the most votes.

Second, the United States and Mexico have different election laws. Using U.S. law to comment on the Mexican election is disrespectful to the citizens of Mexico, especially since he got the U.S. law wrong. Maybe Perry should just keep his mouth shut, since he doesn't seem to understand the election laws of either country.

We have got to vote this fool out of office in November. He is a continuing embarrassment to the state of Texas.