Perry In, Becomes Instant Frontrunner

By Steve Hynd

Rick Perry, after running his presidential campaign for a few months now without announcing - including a massive rally to gain the support of the theocratic right - has finally made his bid official. He is an "instant" frontrunner.

�He becomes immediately one of the top three candidates, and he fills a vacuum � of someone who is a conservative, who has credibility and can speak to the fiscal conservative, anti-big-government and anti-Washington crowd, but he�s also a social conservative,� said Matthew Dowd, a former strategist for President George W. Bush. �At least in the short term, he is a major disruption in the race.�

...�He either gets in and gets through the gantlet of the first month or so and consistently moves forward and wins the nomination, or he�s got this terrific flameout,� Mr. Dowd said. �There�s no middle ground.�

I don't think there will be a flameout. Do not misunderestimate this man: he is no Dubya II, not just "Bush on steroids". This man is a career political fighter. He beat Kay Bailley Hutchison in a knife-fight for the gubernatorial nomination last time out, has never lost an election since entering public service as a state legislator from West Texas in 1985, and will position himself as someone who can unite the various factions of the GOP behind one man.

"There's a lot of expectation about Perry," said Scott Huffmon, a pollster and political scientist at South Carolina's Winthrop University. "There's a belief that if there's a candidate who can appeal to everyone in the modern conservative movement, it's thought to be Rick Perry."

He probably can: the religious right has already piled on board and so have the neoconservatives. And he has plenty of big-money backers on tap.

His messaging will be that he would make the federal government "as inconsequential in your lives as I can" by reducing taxes and easing regulations. Yet for someone who wants to drown big government in a bathtub, he's done very well for himself out of that big government.

In fact, for a politician with such an anti-government lean, Perry has spent nearly his whole career as a government official. He has worked in government for more than 27 consecutive years since being elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1984. If Perry is elected president, he will have served 28 consecutive years doing government work, longer than any candidate ever elected to the White House.

He's also going to run "on his record" of being more fiscally responsible and creating more jobs than Obama. On examination, that record is problemmatic to say the least.

While it's true that Texas has, indeed, created new jobs, it�s equally true that they�re relatively low-wage and that the state�s recent unemployment rates are also higher than they�ve been since the early 1990s.

The problem for Perry, in the blinding light of the national stage, is that he may ultimately be seen as the swaggering rooster who believes the sun came up because of all that crowing. Texas was a conservative, small government, pro-business state long before he was in charge, and Texas will remain so long after he's gone. Americans may conclude that Texas jobs would have materialized whether Perry was governor or not, and it might just be to Texas business� credit, not Perry�s, that they did.

While Perry�s supporters will explain what he�s done for Texans, detractors will cite what Perry hasn�t done. Those celebrating him as the architect of our low-tax state would be forced to acknowledge that this is nothing new, and that Texas is also an extreme low-services state, with serious consequences for Texas families.

Education? We�re 50th in the nation in kids with a high school diploma by age 25, and 43rd in high school graduation rates. We�re 42nd in the nation in high school graduates going to college, and of those, only half earn a degree within six years.

Health care? We�re first in the nation in folks without health insurance and 49th in our low-income population covered by Medicaid.

Relative wealth? We�re fourth in the nation on the percentage of our residents living below the poverty line.

The environment? We�re first in the nation in cancer-causing carcinogens released into the air, first on toxic chemicals released into the water and first in the amount of hazardous waste generated.

Perry has concealed an $11 billion shortfall in the State's finances - with the bill coming due at just about the time he plans to step up to the White House. In his last term as Governor, every Texan except the wealthiest 20% will have seen their state tax bill rise. His own select commission on education says that 'Texas is not globally competitive" and faces a "downward spiral in both quality fo life and economic competitiveness" because Perry's educational and fiscal policies have made the State's schools too poor to educate the State's citizens above dullard level. Mostly his story fo Texan economic strength is a myth based on fortuitous circumstances that can't be replicated on a national level.

There's more, far, more, including insider dealing and unprecedented interference by Texas "big government" in citizen's private lives.

It remains to be seen if all of this will prove sufficient for the Obama campaign to overturn it's own massive negatives, particularly with its base. But what I'm sure of is that none of the other GOP hopefuls is in Perry's weight class when it comes to political in-fighting and that none of them will want to look too closely at the fiscal and wingnut skeletons in Perry's closet in case their own get the same level of scrutiny. I predict he'll be the GOP nominee.

Update: Erica Grieder, southwest correspondent for the Economist, explains why she says " I would suggest that we all keep in mind that Perry is not an idiot and not an ideologue. Democrats, you misunderestimate this one at your peril."