{"id":10496,"date":"2011-07-15T19:05:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T23:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=10496"},"modified":"2011-07-15T19:05:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T23:05:00","slug":"rick-perry%e2%80%99s-lesson-to-cautious-politicians-get-out-of-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/10496\/rick-perry%e2%80%99s-lesson-to-cautious-politicians-get-out-of-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Perry\u2019s Lesson to Cautious Politicians: Get Out of the Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/07\/15\/us\/15ttperry.html?_r=1\" target=\"_blank\"><em>New York Times<\/em><\/a> has an interesting biographical gap filler on Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry\u2019s former life as a Democratic state representative.\u00a0 The theme that stands out is Perry\u2019s uncanny ability to run for office at a time perfectly suited for his personal ambitions.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s an example from when he switched parties to become a Republican running for statewide office.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Rumors that Mr. Perry would defect to the Republican Party \u2014 and run against Jim Hightower, the populist Democratic agriculture commissioner \u2014 picked up steam by late 1989. On Sept. 29, Mr. Perry made it official at a Capitol news conference. At his side were Fred Meyer, chairman of the Texas Republican Party, and Senator Phil Gramm, a former Democrat, who was aggressively courting would-be converts.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Perry\u2019s timing, now legendary, could not have been better. He was one of only two Republicans elected to nonjudicial statewide office in 1990. Eight years later, Republicans swept every one of them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPerry has been a risk taker,\u201d said Mr. Hance, the party switcher who became the chancellor of Texas Tech University. \u201cAnd if you look at Perry\u2019s timing in every race, he\u2019s been the golden guy.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Could 2012 be another such moment for the <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/54-state-of-affairs\/1028-rick-perry-the-texas-tea-party-governor\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Tea Party governor<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times has an interesting biographical gap filler on Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry\u2019s former life as a Democratic state representative.\u00a0 The theme that stands out is Perry\u2019s uncanny ability to run for office at a time perfectly suited for his personal ambitions. Here\u2019s an example from when he switched parties to become [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[914,143,646,334,838,561],"class_list":["post-10496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2012-presidential-election","tag-barack-obama","tag-democratic-party","tag-republican-party","tag-rick-perry","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10496"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10502,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10496\/revisions\/10502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}