Rick Perry Ask the Right Question About Christie’s Appeal to Conservatives

Governor Rick Perry was in Iowa this weekend and during an interview on ABC’s This Week, he raised the $64,000 question about a potential Chris Christie presidential candidacy:

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas credited Chris Christie for his re-election in New Jersey, but he pointedly questioned whether the 22-point victory by Christie held any greater meaning for the Republican Party.

“Is a conservative in New Jersey a conservative in the rest of the country?” Perry said in an interview with “This Week.” “We’ll have that discussion at the appropriate time.”

As he made his first visit back to Iowa since the 2012 presidential race, Perry left the door open to another presidential bid. He said he believed voters would give him an opportunity to make a second impression, if he decided to run again, even though his first campaign fizzled amid a series of high-profile gaffes.

In a wide-ranging interview here, during a two-day visit to Iowa, Perry said the divisions among Republicans have been healthy for the party. But he said it was time for the establishment and tea party wings to rally around at least one shared goal: supporting strong candidates who can win.

“If you can’t win elections, you can’t govern,” Perry said. “So winning an election is really important.”

The truth? Chris Christie may have a shot at getting elected dog catcher in Alabama or Mississippi. But win a Republican primary for president? I exaggerate, of course, but Perry’s perceptive question is at the heart of the disagreement between GOP factions.

From west to east, north to south conservatism has evolved differently, having to confront different issues and develop distinct personalities to be successful. Despite the homogenizing effects of mass media, each region in America differs from the next in big and small ways (it was actually a much more politically significant difference 50 years ago, but that’s a subject that deserves separate attention). Conservatives in the Midwest don’t care about water rights as they do in the west, and Northeastern conservatives have less interest in rural issues than Southern conservatives.

As Perry notes, these differences will make it hard for Christie to light a fire under conservatives in much of the rest of the country. The New Jersey governor’s path to victory will be narrow and depend much on perception and atmospherics.

As a would-be nominee, you have to woo base voters, not run against them, and make them feel respected even when they disagree with you. This doesn’t mean muzzling yourself, or pandering to every right-wing interest group. But it means persuading conservatives that you like them, that you understand them and that as president you’re going to be (mostly) on their side.

Don’t be Rudy Giuliani. You probably think you wouldn’t have Rudy’s problems in a Republican primary. Yes, you’re both combative Northeasterners from the party’s moderate flank, but unlike the former mayor you aren’t a social liberal with a public history of adultery (and a few drag performances thrown in).

But what felled Giuliani in 2008 wasn’t just “values” issues. It was the former mayor’s apparent belief that being a national hero was a sufficient qualification to be president — that he could just show up, be “Rudy,” and the rest would take care of itself.

As another charismatic politician defined by your handling of a catastrophe, you’re vulnerable to the same temptation: the belief that you, personally, are the solution to the Republican Party’s many problems, and that you can just run on your own awesomeness without specifying where you would take the country if you won. That act wears thin in a long campaign, and it’s likely to wear especially thin in a party that needs a new agenda as badly as Republicans do today. Which brings us to …

Don’t assume that what worked in Jersey will work nationally. In state-of-the-party arguments, you and your fellow Republican governors love to contrast your successes with the national party’s struggles. But those successes have been made possible by crucial differences between state-level issues and national ones.

In New Jersey, for instance, you’ve been able to successfully isolate public-sector unions, portraying them as drains on middle-class tax dollars and enemies of the common good. But in national budget debates, the biggest issues are popular entitlement programs, not teacher salaries or bureaucrats’ health benefits. And you probably aren’t going to win the presidency wagging your finger at Social Security recipients, or painting the poor and elderly as dangerous special-interest groups.

He can win the presidency by making Democrats and big government the issue in 2016, hammering them relentlessly as a party of failure. But can he convince enough conservatives elsewhere in the country that he is the answer in order to win the nomination? I think he can — if both Christie and conservatives give each other a chance to prove it. That’s a lot to ask of the mercurial Christie and the quick-to-condemn right wing. And Christie may have other, hidden baggage that would make him unacceptable to voters in a general election.

Perry and other GOP governors will bide their time and let Christie absorb the media spotlight for a while. Eventually, Christie will be running against flesh-and-blood conservatives and not the sort he has been shadowboxing with for the last year. It remains to be seen if his brand of conservative governance can catch on with the right elsewhere in the country when stacked against the ideas and personalities of those more beloved of the right than he.

I hope so. Governor Perry is fantastic, Texas is the best economy in U.S., he tells people where to put it if that's what's needed, and he's everything I love, pro 2nd amendment, anti-amnesty, pro-business and the list goes on.

Texas's economy has nothing to do with Rick Perry and has everything to do with cheap land, cheap resources, a solid power grid (separate from the rest of the US), cheap oil and gas, proximity to Mexico (cheap labor) and with that the busiest port in the United States as far as foreign tonnage, a great high-tech industry, great universities, ranching and agricultural industries (contributing to a diverse economy), and the list goes on. None of which has anything to do with Rick Perry as it all existed before he took over from Bush, and most of which was developing well before Perry was even born.

That's cute about anti-amnesty - Perry has supported a guest worker program since shortly after he took office (http://governor.state.tx.us/news/editorial/10326/), and he was pushing hard for it in 2005-2006 along with Bush, McCain, Kennedy, etc. In your world, guest worker programs may be anti-amnesty, but they aren't in mine.

Rick Perry loves him some La Raza as well - he addressed their national convention in 2010 and was feeling the love they had for him and the love he has for them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgjFXCcz2g4

It was just a coincidence that his two richest donors (home builder and grocer) happened to benefit from illegal immigration as well.

He's pro-business all right. He was trying hard for the biggest land grab in the history of Texas, even bigger than when the feds created Fort Hood, in order to get his precious transportation corridor from Mexico to Oklahoma - it would have taken land from private citizens and turned it over to all kinds of businesses, from the European company that was going to build it, Cintra, all the way down to gas stations and hotel chains.

He loves businesses, yes he does. It was just a coincidence that Cintra was hiring Perry's good friends, just like it was a coincidence that the HPV vaccine he tried to force on the girls of Texas was made by a company that was paying Perry's friends a nice salary to lobby Perry for them.

He even loves Chinese companies, even if the US Congress raises warning flags about their ties to the Chinese government, and even if a former head of the CIA and NSA also raises warning flags.

Speaking of the Chinese, I give Perry credit - he went over to China 2 or 3 years ago and convinced the Chinese government-run national oil company to buy up $2 billion worth of oil and gas resources in South Texas, which led to the employment of tens of thousands of Texans.

Christie makes Perry look like a Conservative, but hell, Obama makes Bill Clinton look like a Conservative.

Lets see whose turn is it next?

Damn sure feels like it's Christie's turn.

And if Christie gets the nomination, I'll never vote for a Republican at any level again, because I won't support people who support a party run by liberals. A liberal with an (R) next to their name is still a liberal, and anybody who is part of a party run by a liberal with an (R) next to their name after 2016 can't help but support it.

We had the Bushes, Dole, McAmnesty, and Mittens shoved down our throats, and it's pretty clear that it's just a trend of a more and more liberal brand of Republican winning the GOP.

We can't keep on bending over for the liberals in either party.

I will say that at least Christie is a tough talking east coast prosecutors w type who earned everything he has not a weenie rich boy which pretty much summarizes ALL the others save mclame who is just clearly senile but of course did come from privelege as well

Here’s the problem. If its Christie vs Hildebeest what do you do?

Stay home like last time? If you do I won’t blame you

Lets home Cruz or lee or even Paul jr can get the nod

And geez Louise it’s only 2013. !

The Marxist arrogant beyond all belief Kenyan still has three years and no election to worry about first

We’re pretty much doomed I think

Here’s the problem. If its Christie vs Hildebeest what do you do?

If it's Christie vs Hillary, we're screwed either way. Both are into Big Government. Obama, Hillary, they want to cut the brakes, mash the gas, and take us to socialism doing 120mph.

The GOP? They want to take us to socialism at a leisurely 45mph. The writing was on the wall when we had a Republican WH and Republican Congress under G.W. Bush and we got a bigger, more expensive, more powerful, and more intrusive government. It was followed up with the nominations of McCain and Romney.

I only vote for Conservatives from now on. Christie is no Conservative. I'm tired of being a Conservative 364 days out of the year, and then voting for liberals in November.

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