Would 'Texas fatigue' hurt a Rick Perry presidential bid?

The Republic ^ | June 16, 2011 | Todd J. Gillman The Dallas Morning News

[Cincinatus' Wife]

NEW YORK — When George W. Bush left office, countless pundits proclaimed — if not in so many words — that it would be a chilly July in Dallas before Americans sent another Texan to the White House.

And sure enough, that argument is prominent in discussion of Gov. Rick Perry's potential presidential bid.

But with Republicans still searching for a front-runner, and Perry flirting with a run, Texas fatigue may prove less enduring than predicted.

"Why not? Listen, anything's better than Obama," said Philip Ragusa, the Republican chairman in Queens, just across the river from Manhattan, where Perry headlined a GOP dinner Tuesday.

After chatting with the governor, Ragusa — his New York accent as thick as Perry's West Texas drawl — came away impressed.

"It doesn't matter where a person comes from, and this person seems to have a stellar record," he said.

A NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey released Wednesday showed Perry in fourth place among registered Republican voters nationwide — ahead of several candidates who have actually joined the race.

Mitt Romney, making his second run for president, led the pack at 30 percent, with Sarah Palin — the party's last vice presidential nominee—at 14 percent. Pizza executive Herman Cain nudged past Perry with 12 percent, though he has already been in two televised presidential debates.

Perry drew 8 percent, a tick ahead of Rep. Ron Paul, a fellow Texan who entered this race, his third, with a nationwide following.

That suggests Texas fatigue may not be a huge issue in the GOP nominating contest. Even though some Republicans remain sour on Bush, for them, Texas remains a place where the economy has done well because conservatism is triumphant.

[iowamark]

LBJ, Bush41, Bush43 are not the most stellar group but I don’t blame Texas for their decisions.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

LBJ -- Well, that wasn't planned.

Bush-I -- GHWB road Reagan's coattails into office.

Bush-II -- GWB - GOP establishment were the deciders (fool me once....)

Rick Perry (has some history and opinions with the Bush clan).

Rick Perry's Tenth Commandment [excerpt] Speaking of presidents: Rick Perry has a complicated relationship with the Bushes, which is to say that he’s hesitant to criticize them and they hate his guts. W. stayed well away from Perry’s gubernatorial-primary melee against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose oatmeal-mushy Republicanism has a distinctly Bushian savor to it. But the mark of W. was all over the campaign against Perry. Former president George H. W. Bush endorsed Senator Hutchison, an unusual step for the habitually reserved retiree, who usually stays well removed from the dirty business of vote-grubbing, surveying the groundlings from the heights of his eminence. Bush père was joined in his support by former vice president Dick Cheney, who offered an endorsement and called Hutchison “the real deal.” Hutchison was further fortified by the Bush clan’s in-house Machiavelli, former secretary of state James Baker, who led the Florida recount fight in 2000 and remains their go-to fixer. W. mouthpiece Karen Hughes came out of the political woodwork to support the insurgency, along with W.’s secretary of education Margaret Spellings. Karl Rove advised Team Hutchison. The gang was all there: All this in a primary challenge to unseat an incumbent Republican governor with one of the most conservative — and most successful — records to be found: Que paso, Bushes?

Part of that was payback. Perry, generally circumlocutious on the subject of W., gave himself a little time off the leash during the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. Often caricatured as yet another snake-handling southern social conservative, Governor Perry backed thrice-married dress-wearing pro-choice lapsed Catholic Rudy Giuliani, on the theory that Rudy would be a badass commander-in-chief abroad and a reliable constitutionalist at home. Politics being politics, the Texan and the New Yorker met up in Iowa, where more than a few Hawkeye conservatives were already getting restive about out-of-control federal spending on the Republicans’ watch. Governor Perry let loose the observation that “George” — and the Bushies hate it when Perry calls him “George” in public — “has never been a fiscal conservative.” Never? “Wasn’t when he was in Texas . . . ’95, ’97, ’99, George Bush was spending money.” He also criticized Bush as being limp on immigration.

The truth hurts, but there’s more to the Bush-Perry friction than that. One longtime observer of Lone Star politics described the Bushes’ disdain of Perry as “visceral,” and it is not too terribly hard to see why. The guy that NPR executives and the New York Times and your average Subaru-driving Whole Foods shopper were afraid George W. Bush was? Rick Perry is that guy. George W. Bush was Midland by way of Kennebunkport. Rick Perry’s people are cotton farmers from Paint Creek, a West Texas town so tiny and remote that my Texan traveling-salesman father looked at me skeptically and suggested I had the name wrong when I asked him whether he knew where it was. (Governor Perry confesses that one of the politiciany things he’s done in office is insisting that the Texas highway atlas include Paint Creek, making him the hometown boy who literally put the town on the map.) Bush is a Yalie, Perry is an Aggie. Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard, and Perry was a captain in the U.S. Air Force, flying C-130s in the Middle East. Bush has a gentleman’s ranch, Perry has the red meat. The irony is that Perry, a tea-party favorite, personifies the hawkish new fiscal conservatism that has allowed the GOP to find its way out from under George W. Bush’s shadow, but he himself remains in the shade of that politically poisonous penumbra. [end excerpt]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[Rick] Perry, take a dim view of this bill (LIBS don't want Gov to keep incandescent bulbs)

Could Perry's brand of conservatism stand national scrutiny?

Perry stresses record during N.Y. speech

Pro-Perry web ads hit N.H.

Old-time religion, today's politics [cultivating "sinister right-wing culture warriors"]

Other states leaving Secure Communities (TX expands ICE program]

Paging Rick Perry: How a Southerner Could Sweep to the G.O.P. Nomination (getting into the weeds)

CNN Poll: Obama approval rating drops as fears of depression rise (Rick Perry anyone?)

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

No.

Critics rip Perry's vaccine mandate

Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor plan is a hard sell

[mylife]

Has anyone considered Chicago fatigue?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Has anyone considered Chicago fatigue?

BIG time fatigue.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

“Critics rip Perry’s vaccine mandate”: It was always an option. It wasn’t approved.

“Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor plan is a hard sell:” It wasn’t done. The people were heard. As always.

[Eva]

What did I read about the percentage of all the jobs that have been created in the past two years being created in TEXAS? I don’t remember the percentage, but it was big.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Perry backed them hard though and completely ignored or dismissed the complaints of his constituents. The people were only heard through the State Legislature which pulled the rug out from under him.

Sorry, no, Perry is just another big government Republican in the Bush mold, and a slippery one at that.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Hi Eva.

I think that number was around 40%.

When you drive through Houston, Dallas, San Antonio or Austin (big metroplex areas) you can see all the activity and feel a great energy.

[Haiku Guy]

After four long years
Of President Oboomba...
Texas Nostalgia.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

He did not ignore or dismiss complaints.

If you don’t like Perry fine.

I get it.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I swoon when I hear Palin or Perry speak.

Down home common sense and love of country.

Can’t wait.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

He did not ignore or dismiss complaints.

You should go back and read all the Perry threads from 2007-2008 concerning the vaccine and the TTC when these issues were going down. I followed them closely and he behaved abominably.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Yes. The lamestream media hates Rick Perry and conservatism. Just like they hate Sarah Palin.

I’ll be watching to see if the MSM slobbers over Rick Perry’s 2 books like they slobbered over Barack Obama’s 2 books.

Probably not. They'll pan them like they did Sarah's books (which I have read and liked).

[no dems]

Would 'Texas fatigue' hurt a Rick Perry presidential bid? ______________________________________________________________ I'm afraid it would. That was my concern from the git-go. But, you have to ask, "what about Obama fatigue?". Remember the articulate, Black lady who, at a Town Hall meeting, told President Clueless: "Frankly I'm tired....tired of defending your policies."

[Recon Dad]

48%

[bmwcyle]

Perry is a very slick phony. Do not vote for him. He is a world elite.

[nonliberal]

The last Texas governor was a disaster.