January 23, 2015
Disclosure: The president of Conservative First PAC worked on Perry’s presidential campaign in 2011-12 before the PAC was registered with the FEC in 2013.
On Tuesday, Rick Perry left the Texas Governor’s Mansion for the final time after 14 years, having served as the longest chief executive in the state’s history.
We salute the outgoing governor and thank him for leading Texas all these years as a conservative.
It certainly has been a long political ride for the humbled man from Paint Creek, Texas to the Governor’s Mansion in Austin.
Under his leadership, Governor Perry steered the Texas economy to becoming the nation’s best in job creation, reformed the Texas legal system with “loser pays” tort reform, kept taxes low, regulations to a minimum, and lured businesses from highly taxed, over-regulated states like California, Illinois, and New York to the Lone Star state.
Also, this past summer, Mr. Perry was front and center of the immigration crisis that took place when thousands and thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America arrived at the southern border which forced the governor to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to the area to help secure the border. Some saw this action as unnecessary and a waste of money, but we applauded the effort for doing something to secure the border as opposed to doing nothing.
However, his years as chief executive have not all been that revered by conservatives. Mr. Perry, for all his accomplishments, is leaving the governor’s mansion with his legacy up for debate.
One of the laws he signed that drew ire from conservatives, in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, was a major factor in his 2012 presidential flame out when a debate audience in Orlando, Florida booed him for his defense of allowing illegals to pay the same tuition costs as legal Texas residents and for then telling his critics “you have no heart”.
Even as recently as a few months ago, Mr. Perry still defends his decision to sign the bill into law.
But in a sign of the new political landscape in Texas after nearly a decade and a half of a Rick Perry administration, the new governor, Greg Abbott, and his Lt. Governor Dan Patrick have targeted the 2001 law for repeal.
Clearly, after serving a long time in office, there will be a handful of issues or bills that the public sours on or never liked to begin with that will be repealed, discarded, or stain one’s legacy.
Regardless, he leaves office having won three full terms for governor and with his fingerprints all over the Texas political map.
Which brings us to Mr. Perry’s future political career.
When he ran for president in the summer of 2011, he talked about using the Texas economic success of “keeping the taxes low, having a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable, and having a legal system that doesn’t allow over-suing” as a model for all the states and for the nation as a whole. People were intrigued.
In addition, he also championed a part-time legislature which Conservative First highly recommends as well as a flat tax proposal, something that flat tax champion Steve Forbes endorsed.
Then came the debate in Orlando followed by the infamous “oops” moment and the writing was all over the wall. He was finished.
In our opinion, it wasn’t Rick Perry’s principles (setting aside in-state tuition) that led to his failure. It was his self-implosion and lack of preparation that ultimately doomed his bid.
Now, the new-look Perry, with chic glasses and sans the cowboy boots, is gearing up for another run, this time well-prepared in his estimation.
But something is quite different about his demeanor this time.
In his farewell speech last week, Perry sounded more like an establishment presidential candidate than the one who rallied the conservative grassroots movement with his defiance of Washington D.C. and strong belief in 10th Amendment federalism.
In recent speeches and in conversations with the media, he has toned down the rhetoric, talks about reaching across the aisle and bi-partisanship, says government “has a role” in our lives, and supports the Export-Import Bank which Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Rand Paul, his potential 2016 rivals, object whole-heartedly.
Not exactly a way to fire up the base.
The field in 2016 is much deeper than the one in 2012 with several more conservative choices and it seems pretty apparent that Rick Perry is conceding the “I’m the conservative firebrand” label to Messrs. Cruz, Paul, Walker, and Rubio.
We are not ready to completely write off Mr. Perry as a potential leader of the free world nor are we ready to endorse anyone else at this early stage in the process.
However, our advise to former Texas Governor Rick Perry is this: if you want to be considered a serious threat in 2016, grasp the grassroots conservative movement sentiment and forget the elder statesman jargon. It has been tried before and has failed many times.
Regardless of what the future holds for Mr. Perry, we thank him for his service to our country both personally and politically.
As the Air Force veteran from Paint Creek, Texas said the last presidential go around:
“I got all the respect in the world for the front-runners in this race, but ask yourself: If we replace a Democratic insider with a Republican insider, you think we’re really going to change Washington, D.C.? You don’t have to settle for Washington and Wall Street insiders who supported the Wall Street bailout and the Obamacare individual mandate.”
Which Rick Perry, if at all, shows up this time?
The grassroots conservative one or new elder statesman insider who wants to reach across the aisle?
