Never ‘misunderestimate’ a Texan

Some of my best days working as a local reporter in the U.S. were out in the west Texas town of El Paso.

It was the late 90s, and yes I did spend time in Rosa’s Cantina, and in some charming “cultural institutions” over the border in Juarez that I’m glad happened before the era of the cell phone camera.

It was such a different time.  Seinfeld was on TV.  The U.S. was running a budget surplus, and the only thing the president really had to think about was when a certain intern was reporting for duty.

There were a couple of Texas politicians I had a series of run-ins with. One was then-Governor George W. Bush; the other was his eventual successor in the governor’s mansion, a man named Rick Perry.

Most of the “run-ins” happened with Bush. He wanted to build a nuclear waste dump out near El Paso. Not only was Bush’s pronunciation of the word “nuclear” totally mangled, so was his data about the radiation that would end up there among the Yucca plants and Prickly Pears.  Being young and enterprising at the time, I fact checked his remarks and sure enough, they added up like a Bernie Madoff investment proposal.

Thinking I’d nailed the governor of Texas – and earned myself one of those fancy journalism trophies to boot – I confronted Bush the next time he came to town, and as expected, he waffled and wavered and spewed a bunch of mostly nonsense into my rolling camera. The fool even smiled and slapped me on the shoulder as he mumbled, “If it isn’t safe, we won’t build it!”

But to my astonishment at the time, Governor Bush didn’t resign in tears after my devastating report aired.  There was no outcry, no investigation, and no call from the producers at 60 Minutes, or even Maury Povich. And we all know what happened to Bush after that. Go figure.

I met Rick Perry around that time. He was a humble Texas Agriculture Commissioner, and came to El Paso to discuss animal husbandry or irrigation or some such riveting subject.  Not suprisingly, I had the commissioner all to myself for a sit-down interview. Aside from his sumptuous thick head of hair, there was little else about the man that would hint at much of a future in state politics, let alone NATIONAL politics. In my expert opinion at that time, he was most certainly not presidential timber.

But fast-forward more than a decade. We now know it is not a prerequisite to have mastered English to be president (or prime minister of Canada for that matter, see: Chretien, Jean). Knowledge of arithmetic, geography, and other such subjects appear to be helpful, but not required. So Texas Governor Rick Perry’s announcement this past weekend that he’s running for the White House is one not to be trifled with. As the saying goes, “Don’t Mess with Texas.”

But what is it about the Lone Star State?

For one, it’s big: the biggest of the lower 48 geographically, and the second (after California) in the number of electoral college votes you need to get elected president.

There’s the J.R. Ewing factor: Texas is rich. While the housing bust gutted out California and Florida, canny Texans were left mostly unscathed. Not to mention all the oilmen and ranchers and tech tycoons down there.

And in a country that leans to the right politically, it’s conservative. Very conservative. Witness how long it took for a Texas jury to decide polygamist religious leader Warren Jeffs would go to prison for the rest of his life for raping girls. It took about three nanoseconds. I watched.

Consider this: if you look at the states where presidents have come from since WWII, Texas has the most, with three.  Lyndon Johnson, George Bush, and George W. Bush. That beats the biggest state, California, which sent Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to the White House.

While it’s obviously too early to predict what will happen a year out in politics – Perry could easily flame out and not get past Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries – let alone beat Obama. But don’t underestimate his ability to transform the race. The Republican base never really warmed up to Romney, and with the anemic economy, Perry has the best story to tell about job creation, where Texas leads the nation.

Let’s face it, smooth talking Obama’s ability to generate jobs would make him one of the first to get fired on any season of The Apprentice. So on that one issue, Texas has a timely advantage.

And while he may come off as just another “Governor Good Hair,” as George W. once taught me, don’t ever “misunderestimate” those Texans.

Paul is a Global National correspondent, based in Washington, DC. Follow him on Twitter: @PJohnsonGlobal.