Concerned Citizens

Wow, the Perry presidential candidacy has to be one of the hottest political topics running the national spectrum these days. Yesterday, Peggy Fikac of the Chronicle/Express-News political reporting team wrote about the latest buzz on Perry’s non-candidacy. As Fikac quoted, Perry kept the buzz alive by saying he’ll “think about it.” Perry then went on to say “I think about a lot of things.” My favorite quote from the article was by Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “He’s taking a cue from Sarah Palin. You’ll know he’s serious when he gets a bus,” said Sabato. Sabato’s probably right. When we see the heavily decaled bus pull up to the rented governor’s mansion then we’ll know the Perry candidacy has official begun.

Perry is playing this non-run for all its worth. You have to hand it to him for how he’s playing it. By acting coy and feigning interest in the legislative session, Perry keeps a good public appearance for national voters who might consider a Perry presidential bid in absence of a good social conservative candidate, which is how all this speculation began. Until Huckabee and Daniels dropped out of the race, Perry wasn’t even being considered as a potential nominee. As I pointed out in my “12th Man” blog entry about him, Perry was pretty low on in the stack of presidential nominee possibilities last year.

But then Huckabee and Daniels dropped out of consideration, Gingrich came in stumbling all over himself, Romney stayed in with questions about his actions as MA governor, and the ladies of the party (Palin and Bachmann) continue to flirt with the voters but have yet to really commit. One could say Palin is in. After all, as Sabato said, Palin got a bus and is touring the country in her One Nation bus tour starting in DC and running up New England. Her purpose, as stated in releases, is to “educate and energize Americans about our nation’s founding principles.” Don’t get me started there. That’s another blog entry for another day.

But even with that tour being publicized, Palin’s keeping a tight reign on what is publicly revealed about it according to the New York Daily News. However, the tour may already be mired in controversy as the article states that while Palin wants to join the annual Rolling Thunder tour in DC, some of the organizers don’t seem cool to the idea. However, as MSNBC points out, if you know someone you can get what you want. Apparently her invitation came from a retired board member, Michael DiPaulo.

So is Palin a contender? According to a recent Gallup poll, Palin polls in at 15%, just 2 points under Mitt Romney, who polls at 17%. That’s just enough to make her interesting to the news media but also raise some eyebrows in the party’s leadership. The question is whether Palin would be a good candidate to run against Obama. Many are afraid of her winning the nomination or even running because it might fracture and divide an already polarizing Republican Party. As one Republican friend of mine told me last week, if Palin were the nominee he’d be joining me at the poll voting for Obama. She’s just that polarizing.

So how does Perry factor into this? Well, based on that last assessment, some in the social conservative ranks see that factor and are searching for a less polarizing candidate to fill the bill. Bachmann seems to be of the Palin brand and doesn’t appeal to many. Besides, her public blunders on historical and constitutional points make her too much a target for the press, much less a presidential opponent like Obama. Digging deeper into the Gallup presidential polling information you find that Obama still leads ANY Republican nominee 43-40%.

Perry, even though he’s not a candidate at this point, seems to be a lesser of evils candidate for the social and fiscal conservatives. As Gail Collins, an op-ed columnist for the NY Times, pointed out, “You can see the attraction. Try to imagine the Republican convention being asked to choose between Mitt Romney, who once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of his car, and the guy who shot a puppy-eating coyote. With a Ruger .380 with laser sights!” Perry just fits their image for a truly red state America.

In The Fix blog entry in WaPo by Chris Cilliza, Perry factors into the top ten but still trailing Palin and Gingrich. In fact Cilliza puts Perry at seven in the list ahead of Cain, Santorum, and Ron Paul, the other Texan and libertarian darling. So, at this point, it’s not a shoe-in for Perry but he’s getting press without even having to fire up a bus, chow down on an ear of corn, explain Laura’s latest shopping spree, or screw up a history lesson on where the first shot was fired in the Revolution.

Perry can just sit back, watch his buddies in the legislature wrangle over the budget and try to help his image by limiting impact to the Rainy Day Fund. He all but guaranteed a special session after stating he call the session if no consensus was reached on the current agreement over the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. As the Texas Tribune points out according to Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, “The fight over the bill, Carona said, boils down to an argument between to wealthy and powerful men: trial lawyer Steve Mostyn and Gov. Rick Perry.”

A special session could benefit and hurt Perry’s chances. It lets him continue to play governor over the legislative session and assert more policy points in the discussion. However, it also cuts into key campaign time during the summer leading up to events like the Iowa Straw Poll. One thing is clear, this will probably be Perry’s last term in office as Texas’ longest serving governor. So he’s going to be looking for brighter fields and running for president can only be a win-win proposition. Just ask Sarah Palin. Who knows? He could appear in a sequel to the Real World Austin, loaning MTV the $10K/month mansion as the party house.