Carrie says: Well its almost a year later and I’m happy to see that the populace outside of Texas was not as easily duped by Perry’s shiny veneer. Not that Romney is much better but it was nice to see Perry’s lack of substance and intelligence revealed in all its glory. (August 6th, 2012 at 4:22pm)
Forget about death and taxes. Today, there are only two sure things in life: Every few years Rick Perry will run for office, and every few years Rick Perry will grind his opponents into dust. Since 1984, the man once derided as “Governor Good Hair” has participated in ten contested elections* and won all of them. A few were against relatively weak opposition, but many were against prominent figures who were expected to give Perry a run for his money. Jim Hightower, John Sharp, Tony Sanchez, Chris Bell, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Bill White—you could competently govern a medium-sized republic with political talent like that. But all of them fell to Perry’s deep coffers, disciplined campaign style, occasional refusal to debate, and (semi-) popularity among Texans. What is it like to run against the man who may well be the most successful state politician in Texas history? To find out, we spoke to eleven people with intimate knowledge of what is, after dying and paying taxes, the most unpleasant experience a politician can endure. Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Barack Obama: Read closely.
Race
1984 Democratic primary for state representative (District 64)
Opponent
Kenneth Neighbours (D), lost with 22 percent*
Perry won his first race handily, and in District 64 in the mid-eighties, winning the Democratic primary was equivalent to winning the general election. Neighbours, a rancher and longtime history professor at Midwestern State University, in Wichita Falls, died in 2002. During his life, he kept regular journals, which are now held at the University of Texas at Arlington. Several of the entries from 1984 address his campaign against Perry.
May 1: Forum at Granbury. Wrote speeches for tonight. Went for haircut. Minor local candidates spoke first. Then leg. cand. Rick Perry had county remote official stand in for him. Said he was socked in by weather in Mi Wells. I read my paper last.
May 5: Primary election 7 a.m.–7 p.m. Went to Winn Dixie. Young man sacking groceries invited me inside where it’s cool . . . middle-aged woman asked whether I knew Rick Perry. I said, “Yes, he’s cute.” She turned red and accused me of breeding, training, and selling race horses for amateur betting. First malicious and false rumor I’ve heard. Shriner man laughed heartily at my calling Rick cute . . . Left Winn Dixie at 6:45. Ate at cafe next to Holiday Hills . . . drove my pickup home. Bill used portable radio and phone to get results. Rick Perry won.
Race
1986 Democratic primary for state representative (District 64)
Opponent
W. R. “Bob” Hailey (D), lost with 24 percent*
Perry’s second race was not much more challenging than his first. Hailey, a Fort Worth public school teacher and principal, as well as a World War II veteran (he is said to have shot at Erwin Rommel’s car), died this past June. His daughter Celeste Sainte-Marie recalls that he refused to take money for the race so as not to become indebted to anyone. “He was always more concerned about the little man who can’t take up for himself,” she says. “The average taxpayer.”
Race
1990 general election for agriculture commissioner
Opponent
Jim Hightower (D, incumbent), lost with 48 percent
By 1990, Perry had switched parties to run against Hightower, the incumbent ag commissioner. Best known today as a radio host and author, Hightower at the time had a national profile as Texas’s most liberal and populist statewide official. That wasn’t enough to help him hold on to his job, though he came as close to defeating Perry as anyone else has, falling short by a little more than one percent.
Hightower: The Republicans were pissed at me, because I had gone after Bill Clements when he was running against [Governor] Mark White. And the chemical lobby despised me, and the Farm Bureau hated me too. They were pushing two pieces of legislation, one to remove my authority for pesticide regulation and the other to make the office appointed [by the governor]. That was unsuccessful, but it led to this committee hearing, and Perry was the chair of that committee. I suppose Karl Rove looked at him and thought, “Here’s a guy who’d look good in chaps and who is an empty slate and we can make him an offer that he’ll grab because he’s a political opportunist.”
I guess I’d call Perry’s campaign ghostly, because he was not the main character. Rove, who recruited him to switch parties and run against me, directed the effort. Perry was not any good at campaigning; he had no idea how to deal with Houston and Dallas and San Antonio and South Texas and all that, though I don’t know of any inappropriate comments that he made, because he wasn’t really getting any media. Rove got frustrated with him and sent him out to West Texas to attend Farm Bureau county meetings while Rove raised, I think it was about $3 million, and threw it into TV ads against me. They ran ads of me endorsing Jesse Jackson—ran that in East Texas. One ad showed a hippie setting a flag on fire and throwing it on the ground, and my picture came up out of the flames. So I had supporters in Dallas and Houston and East Texas who said, “Well, I liked ol’ Hightower but I didn’t know he burned flags.”
There was a debate on Channel 13 in Dallas. Just the usual stuff. He tried to use some of the Rove negative things, including the flag-burning stuff, I think. Off the cuff, he was nondescript. He hadn’t really developed any political chops at the time. Obviously he has since. I think he’s a good campaigner. I think that’s the one thing he actually does well, as opposed to actually governing or having actual ideas or principles.
Race
1994 general election for agriculture commissioner
Opponent
Marvin Gregory (D), lost with 36 percent
Gregory, a 72-year-old chicken farmer from Sulphur Springs, served on the Texas Agricultural Finance Authority with Perry in the early nineties and then, after switching from the Republican party to the Democratic party, ran against him for agriculture commissioner in 1994. Today Gregory says he will support Perry for president.
Gregory: He hasn’t changed that much since I first met him. He doesn’t make a lot of loose talk. He doesn’t say things that you would use against him later on. He’s not his own enemy, is what I would say. If you look at our president today, he’ll say one thing one week, next week he says something else. So there’s always room to go back and say, “Well, you said this then. What’s the difference now?” And you never hear that much from the governor.
There was never a doubt in his mind, I don’t think, that he was going to win. So he went on about his business; he ran it like he was going to win it. We had debates at different places, and he just basically didn’t show up most of the time. And you can’t blame him, because when you’re ahead, [participating in debates is] not a real good idea.
Whoever runs against him, they better have all their irons in the fire when they come after him, because he’s going to have his ready to go. He don’t have many skeletons in the closet. Just be ready for a fight, ’cause you’re going to get one.
Race
1998 general election for lieutenant governor
Opponent
John Sharp (D), lost with 48 percent
A veteran of the state House and Senate, Sharp, who had been a friend of Perry’s at Texas A&M, gave up his position as comptroller to run. But he wasn’t quite able to close the gap. He recently announced that he would run for the Senate seat that Kay Bailey Hutchison is vacating.
Sharp: Running against Perry is like running against God. Everything breaks his way! Either he’s the luckiest guy in the world or the Lord is taking care of him. In 1998 Governor Bush told Bob Bullock he was going to stay out of our lieutenant governor’s race, according to Bullock. Then Bush realized that he could not run for president if it meant leaving office would elevate a Democrat to governor. So he was forced to get involved, and his parents ran ads for Perry.
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