re: #17 Charles Johnson

For a supposed crisis that has been going on for years, Perry is only taking action now, right at a point in time when the crisis appears to not only be ebbing from a numerical standpoint (the number of kids crossing the border illegally is dropping) but right before the midterm elections and just as the race for the White House in 2016 is beginning to take shape. He knows he has to do something dramatic to garner attention when he’s polling in the low single digits among GOP pretenders/contenders for the nomination. So, making a big production about sending Guardsmen to the border is his attempt to break out of the doldrums.

He’s doing it for the optics and for pressing his position with an eye towards 2016 and not for a human rights crisis with kids trying to cross the border to get to a better life here.