Bush Magnified

Candidate Perry Makes George W. Bush Seem Moderate

Obama has a new opponent: The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is beating his rivals in the popularity polls among candidates of the Republican Party. Voters from the right wing do not mind that he wants Social Security eliminated and are true fans of his idea of secession.

It was the first of the important debates before next year’s presidential election. Eight candidates for the Republican Party nomination met in the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. But all attention was focused on one of them: the new polls’ favorite, Rick Perry. The governor of Texas did not disappoint his followers: He called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” repeated that he thinks that global warming was invented by scientists and called the current president an “abject liar.” When his rivals started criticizing him for being too radical, he said “maybe it’s time to have some provocative language in this country.” And he was rewarded with an ovation.

The debate in California was Perry’s first appearance on the domestic political scene since joining the race for the Republican presidential nomination in the middle of August. He was outrunning all his rivals in the polls within a month, including the favorite, Mitt Romney. And it’s all thanks to the fact that he is not mincing his words: In his book that was published recently, entitled “We Have Had Enough! Our Fight to Save America from Washington,” he demanded that income tax be voided and the federalist state be reduced. He is especially admired by religious conservatives and rallies with his presence turn into religious services. Perry prays out loud and speaks like evangelical preachers.

Texan boom

America already had a Texan president not long ago, but Republicans obviously ask for more. Perry is not “a sympathetic conservative” like George Bush wanted to be when he ran for the White House 11 years ago. He wrote in his book that conservatism doesn’t have to be dressed up with different adjectives and you don’t have to work a compromise with the liberals. Instead of dissociating himself from Bush, to whom he owes a governor’s position, he decided to overshadow him with his own conservatism. From his public speeches you can assume that he is ready to move America back 100 years, to the time before progress and reform movements were born and the welfare state originated. If he wins next year’s election, he would be Bush magnified.

Perry has been a governor for the last 11 years, the longest term among all current governors in the U.S. The voters keep extending his mandate as Texas remains a true island on the sea of economic slump. Since June 2009 it created as many jobs as all the remaining states combined (the unemployment rate there is 8.4 percent, which is less than national average). Perry claims it is thanks to good business conditions: There is no capital income or profit tax, the regulations were limited to the minimum. The reform he forced limited legal suits, and the damages for, among others, medical errors, attracts medical business to Texas.

But the truth about the Texas economic miracle is a bit more complex. According to the critics, the number of jobs increased thanks to Texas’ demographic boom — the number of the state’s residents increased by 20 percent during the last 10 years. It is also thanks to high prices of petroleum and gas that keep working for the economy. According to the governor’s followers, the first argument is doubtful, the demographic relation can be different: People keep coming to Texas because of the new perspectives provided by the boom. The critics don’t give up and claim that the last jobs were created mainly in the low-paid service sector.

The more convincing argument seems to be the claim that Perry’s pro-business policy results in social costs. Texas has the highest percentage in the U.S. of people without health insurance (26 percent) and one of the highest poverty rates. It also has the highest percentage in the country of teens with less than a high school education. Savings that the state makes on education already cause problems for employers: Some of them cannot find qualified employees and suggest that Texan authorities do not understand that the contemporary economy is based on education.

Moreover, favorable business conditions — low taxes and high deregulation — existed in Texas even before the governor took the position, and he can only brag about what he didn’t spoil. Increased restrictions (compared to other states) in granting mortgages are also to his predecessor’s credit. Thanks to this, Texas did not suffer so much during the crisis in the real estate market that brought other states to the brink of crisis.

A Boy from the Neighborhood

Unlike Bush, who came to Texas from Connecticut, Perry is a true Texan. His family has lived there for five generations. In his childhood, he would help his parents in cattle breeding; then he worked as a traveling salesman during his zoology studies at the university, and after graduation he moved with his father to a farm to grow cotton. He served in the Air Force, flew on C-130 transporters and reached the rank of captain. His farm and military biography allows him to promote the image of “a boy from the neighborhood” who owes everything to himself only and not any money to his Dad’s relationships, as his predecessor.

In his young years Perry was a Democrat, as almost all politicians in the South. As a politician in the Democratic Party he managed to get to the House of Representatives; in 1988 he led Al Gore’s campaign in Texas, when he ran for president. One year later Perry joined the Republicans, but yet in 1993 he would support health insurance reform prepared by Hillary Clinton. In the ’90s he became a Texan commissioner for agriculture and then Bush’s deputy. When Bush moved to the White House, Perry took his position. He has been reelected three times since then.

As governor, Perry did not always govern according to his current declarations of the necessity of decreasing the size of the state. During his term in office there were funds supporting high-tech industry in Texas, which was supposed to attract companies from different states to this sector. When Texas was in trouble, Perry eagerly took advantage of federal aid. The right wing keeps reminding him about an act making it easier for the children of illegal immigrants to get higher education, similar to the one Democrats are trying to pass in Congress today so it can be valid in the entire country. Much indicates, therefore, that his extreme rhetoric is not necessarily honest and is supposed to serve to strengthen his position among populists from the tea party movement.

A Controversial Candidate, so to Speak

Although he owes his career mostly to Bush, they went their separate ways. When the president tried to advise him from Washington what to do in Texas, Perry was put out and responded that he wouldn’t allow anyone to steer him. He criticized his former patron about the wastefulness of Republicans in Congress. In 2010, when he ran for reelection, Bush’s people supported Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson in Republican caucuses, which Perry cannot forgive. Karl Rove, the president’s former strategist, tried from the very beginning to make the governor’s start in the race for the White House more complicated, hardly hiding disdain and suggesting that he is just a churlish simpleton.

With his behavior Perry confirms that he is, so to speak, a controversial candidate. During one of his meetings with voters he seemed to show support or at least understanding for the idea of Texas’ secession from the U.S. This would be a remedy for the oppression of the federal government. Already, after confirming his candidacy, he violently attacked Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, for printing money in order to force the economy to grow. He accused him of betrayal, which was met with criticism from the most important conservative commentators. Perry also questioned Barack Obama’s patriotism and suggested that the army has no respect for him.

He never backed out of any of these declarations, despite them crossing all limits of polemics that all candidates for the White House are bound to keep. That’s why the Republican establishment has doubts that Perry would be acceptable for voters outside the red states of the south and west, especially in key swing states in the north, such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio. After Bush’s presidency Americans are sensitive to the Texan variety of machismo with cowboy boots and swashbuckling nonchalance; with Perry you additionally have to deal with verbal aggression.

But Perry’s position is getting stronger. In the polls he is beating Mitt Romney, so far the right-wing favorite and despite Rove’s efforts to cut him off from the wealthiest sponsors of the Bush clan. Perry has no problem getting funds for his campaign. The core of his sponsors are multi-millionaires from Texas, to whom he provides favorable contracts, lucrative positions and other benefits. After governing Texas for more than 10 years he managed to fill all the state positions with his people, who obediently reward his allies in business.

Other Players

Perry’s declarations can offend the elites but they perfectly match the mood of the tea party masses, with right-wing frustration and anger aimed at Obama. Unlike nice Romney, who has been registered as an independent voter since 1994, a hot-tempered one doesn’t have to explain his about-face (Gore, whom he supported 23 years ago, was a conservative democrat), his worldview is consistent; we know what he believes in and where he is going. His modest background and image of the neighborhood boy knowing ordinary people’s problems is an advantage compared to Romney, coming from a multi-millionaire family and bragging about his wealth.

If there is no one else joining this competition in the Republican Party, the caucuses will be all about Perry vs Romney. Especially since Paul Ryan and Chris Christie, promoted by many, refuse, Sarah Palin would not be a serious candidate and Michele Bachmann seems to fade slowly. Republicans, as usual, are at a crossroads: Either, according to the will of their right-wing base, they choose a crystal clear conservative who is not going to get independent voters’ support, or they decide to take an electable politician, able to attract the modest center. Romney, despite his shortfalls, still seems to be the one.

If the election took place today, Perry would slightly lose to Obama, who is getting weaker, while Romney could count on a draw. But there is still more than a year to elections and time favors Perry. In the Republican Party there is the tea party having the last word, the movement demanding idealistic clarity and being uncompromising, as a product of increasing polarization of the political scene. The economic crisis woke up the right wing populists, who see their main enemy in the elites and the federal government. If the economic situation keeps getting worse, desperation can push Americans into supporting programs that see improvement in dismantling the welfare state.

In such circumstances, Perry’s radicalism sooner or later places itself in the mainstream.