Imperial trumpets greeted Rick Perry as he stepped forward Monday afternoon to announce he wouldn’t seek a fourth full term as governor. Perry touts the state’s economy as his primary success as Texas’ political executive but his undisputed legacy as governor lies with the appointments he’s made. Dozens of former Perry aides and associates control the various state agencies and will remain in office long after Perry has ridden off into the Texas sunset, or north, west and east to seek national glory. These loyalists won’t dishonor the liege to whom they owe their careers (and padded fortunes).
Texas governors may be constitutionally weak but there’s nothing stopping them from fully exercising the limited power they have. Perry exercised his powers like few governors before him, not only with the appointments he was able to make but also with the veto given him. Perry vetoed bills with vigor, most famously in 2001 when he struck down 82 bills on one day. It has helped Perry that his tenure has been uniquely long and has mostly overlapped with David Dewhurst’s tenure as lieutenant governor. There’s been no one strong enough to push against him.
The next regular legislative session begins in January 2015 and will await Perry’s successor — presumably Attorney General Greg Abbott. Thus Perry is free to spend the next 18 months assembling the people and resources needed for an early-entry presidential run, unlike the 2012 race when he waited until August 2011 before joining the campaign.
Presidents and governors are the quarterbacks of the political world. They’re given too much credit when economic times are good and receive too much blame when economic times are bad, but that’s the way it is. Perry will claim the so-called Texas Miracle as his own, and why not? Any other politician would do the same. And he will leave office with a secure conservative record. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be a strong presidential candidate.
Perry’s problem two years ago, however, was not that he entered the 2012 race too late — he joined the crowded field the instant front-runner. The conventional wisdom holds that by waiting to enter the 2012 race Perry came in ill-prepared and thus unable to put his best foot forward. But as is well known, from “Adios, mofo” to flirtatious hints of secession to “oops,” Perry’s anatomical problem lies not with his feet but somewhere between brain and mouth. That is, Rick Perry’s primary problem as a presidential candidate, should he run for president in 2016, will be Rick Perry.
As it was last time. So it will be again. What Perry has to overcome to succeed nationally is himself.
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By the time he leaves office on Jan. 20, 2015, Perry will have been governor for 14 years, 30 days. His time in office may already seem like an eternity to many Texans, but Perry’s tenure will lie just outside the list of top 10 longest serving U.S. governors. The list includes George Wallace, Edwin Edwards and Nelson Rockefeller but is topped by George Clinton - of the Founding Fathers, not of Parliament-Funkadelic. Clinton was governor of New York for 21 years, from 1777 to 1795 and again from 1801 to 1804, and holds the longevity record. (The members of the founding generation were just as reluctant to leave office as today’s politicians are.)
Clinton’s record may seem unbreakable, but a threat looms: Republican Terry Branstad has been Iowa’s governor for almost 18½ years. When his current term ends in January 2015, he will have been in office a total of 19 years, 11 months and 29 days. If Branstad runs for re-election in 2014 and wins, he will pass Clinton’s mark in early 2016. By then the Iowa caucuses will be history and Perry will know whether his second presidential run, should it happen, will be as short-lived as his first.