Gov. Rick Perry Visits Stamford To Poach Jobs, Talk Civility

Gov. Rick Perry took time out of his busy schedule "poaching all of [Connecticut's] jobs," as he joked, to talk civility on the campaign trail in the 11th installment of Mayor Michael Pavia's Civility in America Speaker Series.

"The purpose of this series is to spark dialogue, to begin a conversation to restore civility in all walks of our society," said Pavia in his opening remarks for the installment. "The unprecedented success of this series... demonstrates a mere fraction of the people who are calling for change. According to a recent poll, this is especially true when it comes to political campaigns. 78-percent of americans are frustrated by the tone of political campaigns. Three-quarters think the tone has grown more negative in recent years and 66-percent believe that the candidates spend more time attacking each other than talking about the issues."

Pavia said one-liners have more influence in today's culture than inspiration and vision, and incivility has become the norm, rather than the exception.

Perry was affable and loose, and took the opportunity to address the crowd by calling for a return to civility in the country's "permanent campaign culture," calling civility "an American Ideal," that the country hasn't "been able to consistently live up to all that well."

Perry said a "fractured media" focused on creating conflict and an internet rife with anonymity and an easily-navigable system play important roles in the perpetuation of follies, mistruths and flat-out lies that can hamper any political endeavor.

"It's a high-tech way to dehumanize someone with a very different viewpoint from yours... [but] technology didn't get us into this mess and technology's not going to get us out either." he said. "Civility is a choice... We are making a conscious choice to depart from our values."

But he also called out politicians, himself included, for creating hostilities, though he said the jabs can often be made with good intentions. He also said politicians on a large scale can't communicate with each other and often nitpick situations over which they have no control, and implied a smaller focus from a local source often drives a city's successes.

"Local people are in the best position possible to solve the problems that face them," Perry said. "While coarseness can score political points, civility is what brings people together. We can accomplish so much by learning to listen to our opponents; to understand the way they see the world. We can do so much more by committing ourselves to an open climate where people can voice opinions without fear of being shouted down, called a name or given a label that can permanently stain a reputation. We can do so much more by accepting the fact that we can't, in the end, win them all."

Perry's presentation lasted just shy of 12 minutes before questions were asked of him by the audience through a moderator, via cards turned in and directed to the governor by Pavia. The most difficult question he faced during his presentation on civility was his current stance on the belief that Texas should secede from the union. Perry laughed and said the off-the-cuff comment he made was humorous in nature and had been "misrepresented" in a more serious context than he'd intended.

"It is an interesting concept that probably has no basis in law or fact that gets talked about from time-to-time," he said. "Those days are way passed [for a state like Texas to be able to secede.] Frankly, I'm thinking, most people don't want Texas to leave because 30-percent of all the new jobs created in the last 10 years were created in Texas. The president came to Austin to take a jobs tour just about 30 days ago. I was pulling his leg, sort of, and said 'Mr. President, you better be glad with what we got going on down here in Texas, because... [without it,] your story wouldn't be nearly as good.'"