Different as they are, the two Sunbelt governors who aimed for the White House have some disturbing things in common
But Perry’s hint that perhaps the best is yet to come for him is a reminder that, back in 2011, he was briefly all the rage in Republican politics. He was asurging in the polls, drawing huge crowds everywhere, and delighting Republican elites looking for a trusted and electable conservative to put up against Barack Obama in 2012. Perry was, in some important respects, the Ron DeSantis of that election cycle.
Now, you may laugh at the comparison. Perry, after all, is a good old boy from Paint Creek, Texas, who barely made it through theand climbed the ranks of Texas Republican politics without impressing too many people with his intellect. Despite fairly humble roots, DeSantis managed to get into and graduate from Yale and Harvard Law School. Perry left college to serve as an Air Force pilot.
But on the national stage, the two men have a lot in common. Both spent a lot of time boasting about their respective Sunbelt states as job magnets and economic paradises attributable to their sturdy conservative governing principles. Both have a knack for tossing red meat to right-wing audiences. And both became darlings of national Republican elites eager to sidetrack front-runners in a presidential nominating contest .
Perry waited even longer in 2011 than DeSantis has this year to formally announce his candidacy . But Perry instantly leapt into first place in the national polls and, within a couple of weeks, was more than doubling Romney’s polling numbers. Perry had tons of money and was attracting both ideologues and those focused on electability. But he then badly stumbled in two candidate debates.
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