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The survivor

Rick Perry is poised to win Texas’s Republican primary for the governorship—for the third time. Where might that take him next?

Feb 18th 2010 | PLANO | From The Economist print edition

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ON FEBRUARY 15th several hundred conservative activists gathered in Plano, a suburb of Dallas, for a town-hall meeting. It was the sort of crowd where people discuss how to make their own ammunition because bullets are so expensive. In a side room Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, chatted to The Economist as he got ready to make his speech. He mocked Barack Obama’s expensive stimulus package, and said if he was in charge of federal spending the departments of energy and education would be the first to go. When he went on, the crowd loved him.

Mr Perry faces a gubernatorial primary on March 2nd. A Rasmussen poll on February 1st gave him a 15-point lead over his closest opponent for the Republican nomination, the state’s senior senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison. As Mr Perry puts it, “It has followed the game plan rather closely.”

What was supposed to be a showdown between two Republican heavies has turned into a rout. A year ago Mrs Hutchison was the most popular politician in Texas, a moderate serving her fourth term in the Senate. Mr Perry was in his third term, having ascended from the lieutenant-governor’s seat in 2000 when George Bush won the presidency. But he was re-elected in 2006 with just 39% of the vote, earning only a plurality in a field split between himself, a Democrat, a conservative independent and a singing Jewish cowboy, Kinky Friedman, now angling for agriculture commissioner.

In recent years Mr Perry had angered his conservative base by suggesting that schoolgirls should get mandatory vaccines against the human papilloma virus, which is sexually transmitted, and that toll roads would be the solution to Texas’s transport woes. Early polls showed Mrs Hutchison well ahead. She reeled in big endorsements from most of the leading newspapers and much of the Republican establishment. Republicans and Democrats alike were openly scoffing at Mr Perry’s prospects. No longer. Barring something bizarre, Mr Perry will cruise through the primary in his bid to remain governor of America’s second-largest state.

Blame or thank Washington for that. A year ago, the nation was aflush with Obama fever, the District of Columbia was briefly gilded with glamour and Mr Perry’s insistence that Mrs Hutchison was too tied to the federal capital did not resonate much. Over the months his argument has come to look obvious. Conservatives around the country are howling about federal spending and the growth of the state. In Texas those arguments have a special force: unemployment has been well below the national average since the recession started, and although the state has received some $7 billion of federal stimulus to patch up the budget, there is still $9 billion untouched in its “rainy day” fund.

To be sure, some Texas Republicans are sick of both options. That became clear when Debra Medina entered the race. Mrs Medina is a nurse who worked for the presidential campaign of Ron Paul, a libertarian. She packed an entire political career into just a few months, moving from unknown to underdog to phenomenon to flame-out. At one point there was even speculation that she could force a Perry-Medina run-off. But then, on February 11th, Mrs Medina went on Glenn Beck’s radio show and said that some good questions had been raised about the American government’s role in the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001.

What next? Mrs Hutchison has said that she will resign from the Senate after the primary, no matter what happens, leading to a possibly exciting Senate race. And after the primary Mr Perry will have to tweak his game plan. The vaccines and the toll roads are old news, and they will carry less weight in the general election than in the Republican primary. But Mrs Hutchison has raised some serious arguments against Mr Perry, particularly the idea that 14 years is too long for one person to hold power; Mr Perry is already the longest-serving governor in Texas’s history. (Emphasis added)

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