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Rick Perry: The New Nixon
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| Parent(s) |
Candidate
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| Contributor | TX DEM |
| Last Edited | TX DEM Oct 18, 2010 06:48pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Author | BOB MOSER |
| Media | Analysis Magazine - Texas Observer |
| News Date | Tuesday, October 19, 2010 12:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | FROM HIS FIRST STATEWIDE RUN FOR AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER in 1990, when a soft-focus ad showed him posing on horseback in the sunset like a Harlequin Romance coverboy, Rick Perry has itched to fashion himself the next Ronald Reagan—a Hollywood-handsome, Old West conservative locked and loaded for a showdown with big-government liberals. Last year, the dream began to come true: When Perry shamelessly exploited the burgeoning Tea Party movement, the national media finally discovered him. A year later, Perry landed on the cover of Newsweek in his more mature business-cowboy garb—suit and “Come and Take It” boots—and got the mythic-hero treatment. “Could Perry be the second coming of Ronald Reagan?” the magazine asked in a rhapsodic profile.
Perry was riding high at the time, fresh off his landslide primary victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina. But then a bumper crop of Tea Party nincompoops—Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, et al.—began to steal his thunder, as did his pal Sarah Palin. Despite his denials, Perry continues to walk and talk like a presidential candidate—complete with the obligatory campaign-launch book, Fed Up, due out in November. But something else has happened since last spring: Perry’s carefully constructed image as a principled conservative in the Goldwater/Reagan mold has started to come unglued. On Election Day, the “R” at the top of the ballot will be a character who more closely resembles another timeless GOP model: Richard M. Nixon.
The similarities start—but do not end—with the campaign Perry has run against Democrat Bill White. It’s an uncanny reproduction of Nixon’s “Rose Garden” re-election strategy in 1972, when the Trickster set a new standard for evading press and public scrutiny. |
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