I don’t know why the Statesman has made an issue of Governor Perry’s failure to endorse Joe Straus. No one with political savvy should have expected otherwise. The speaker does not need Perry’s endorsement to buttress his conservative bona fides; his record of budget cuts and conservative legislation in the last session speaks for itself. To get the endorsement, Straus would have had to genuflect before the Perry budget compact, which he never would have done. The two men are totally different in character and political type. Straus is serious, studious, and reserved. Perry is swaggering, blustering, and full of himself. The two leaders are destined to clash during the upcoming session. There is no love lost between them, and their relationship is likely to get worse before it gets better.