A One-Party Pol
Rick Perry is the GOP equivalent of a San Francisco Democrat. He has flourished where the opposition isn’t a factor.
Ron Brownstein
National Journal
Updated: September 22, 2011 | 6:20 p.m.
AUSTIN, Texas—The Lone Star State this summer has been scorched by record heat and drought and seared by horrific wildfires. The National Weather Service recently reported that Texas in 2011 recorded the hottest summer for any state in the history of federal records. Hand-lettered signs tacked to utility poles read simply: pray for rain.
This extreme weather has disrupted almost every aspect of Texas life. But one thing it hasn’t done is prompt sustained discussion about whether the state could be suffering from the effects of global climate change—a theory that Republican Gov. Rick Perry dismisses as unproven and partly the invention of scientists scheming for research grants.
That resounding silence is a reminder that Perry presides over a state that has tilted so solidly Republican for 15 years that he has not faced significant political opposition from Democrats, or the groups usually allied with them, at almost any point in his governorship. Perry’s approach to political leadership—from his unbending positions on most issues to his frequently barbed rhetoric—carries the unmistakable stamp of his experience as the leader of the dominant faction in a one-party state. He is the Republican equivalent of a San Francisco Democrat, a politician molded by unshielded exposure to his party’s brightest flame. That pedigree helps explain some of his greatest strengths—and potential vulnerabilities—in the 2012 presidential race.
It’s difficult to overstate how thoroughly Republicans now dominate Texas politics. From the Civil War through the late 1970s, Democrats controlled the state without challenge; from then until the early 1990s, the two parties battled on nearly equal footing. But George W. Bush’s defeat of popular Democratic Gov. Ann Richards in 1994 marked a tipping point. Democrats have not won any statewide office since then, and in 2010, no Democratic statewide candidate garnered more than the 42.3 percent of the vote that Bill White captured against Perry. Democrats held at least one chamber in the Texas Legislature through 2002, but the GOP has controlled both the House and Senate since; the party’s House ratio now stands at 2-to-1. In 2005, a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage passed in all of the state’s 254 counties except the one that includes liberal Austin. Exit polls show that Republicans now frequently attract the votes of more than two-thirds of the state’s whites.
(More here.)
Ron Brownstein
National Journal
Updated: September 22, 2011 | 6:20 p.m.
AUSTIN, Texas—The Lone Star State this summer has been scorched by record heat and drought and seared by horrific wildfires. The National Weather Service recently reported that Texas in 2011 recorded the hottest summer for any state in the history of federal records. Hand-lettered signs tacked to utility poles read simply: pray for rain.
This extreme weather has disrupted almost every aspect of Texas life. But one thing it hasn’t done is prompt sustained discussion about whether the state could be suffering from the effects of global climate change—a theory that Republican Gov. Rick Perry dismisses as unproven and partly the invention of scientists scheming for research grants.
That resounding silence is a reminder that Perry presides over a state that has tilted so solidly Republican for 15 years that he has not faced significant political opposition from Democrats, or the groups usually allied with them, at almost any point in his governorship. Perry’s approach to political leadership—from his unbending positions on most issues to his frequently barbed rhetoric—carries the unmistakable stamp of his experience as the leader of the dominant faction in a one-party state. He is the Republican equivalent of a San Francisco Democrat, a politician molded by unshielded exposure to his party’s brightest flame. That pedigree helps explain some of his greatest strengths—and potential vulnerabilities—in the 2012 presidential race.
It’s difficult to overstate how thoroughly Republicans now dominate Texas politics. From the Civil War through the late 1970s, Democrats controlled the state without challenge; from then until the early 1990s, the two parties battled on nearly equal footing. But George W. Bush’s defeat of popular Democratic Gov. Ann Richards in 1994 marked a tipping point. Democrats have not won any statewide office since then, and in 2010, no Democratic statewide candidate garnered more than the 42.3 percent of the vote that Bill White captured against Perry. Democrats held at least one chamber in the Texas Legislature through 2002, but the GOP has controlled both the House and Senate since; the party’s House ratio now stands at 2-to-1. In 2005, a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage passed in all of the state’s 254 counties except the one that includes liberal Austin. Exit polls show that Republicans now frequently attract the votes of more than two-thirds of the state’s whites.
(More here.)
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