Without getting into the minute details of what Texas is doing right or wrong under Rick Perry---my personal observation is that Texas is indeed business friendly. I also think that Texas, under Perry, might be considered overall the most conservative state in the nation. The Perry political machine would easily rival the legendary Daley political machine in Chicago. Perry is a self-serving hypocrite who somehow has convinced the voters of Texas to vote against themselves with his endless rant about secession, guns, religion, abortion, and "pull yourself up by your booststraps". He loaded up the Texas Education Agency with right-wing religious nuts who sole purpose was to change school textbooks to reflect a "born-again" philosophy, he even recently got legislation passed to bring in nuclear waste from everywhere to dump here and just magically the company over the project was Perry's largest campaign contributer, I could go on and on.

Texas under Perry has a spending problem - they (the Republican super-majority) refuse to spend money on the citizens of Texas.

He even created his own private slush fund from oil and gas taxes that only he can decide how to use (Rainy Day Fund). All of this while running up a 25-28 billion dollar deficit in the state budget. Were it not for the almost immune oil and gas business the budget would be in even greater shambles. He like to talk about "small government" and then pushes for emergency legislation for nanny government issues.

All of this and yet I suspect that he could get re-elected forever if that was his desire. That is the nature of the conservative voters in Texas these days. Many will talk about what a buffoon he is and then go to the ballot box and vote a straight GOP ticket - they simply cannot stand those damn liberals.

I tried to warn people around the country as I traveled when I worked about Bush in 2000 and how dangerous he was but somehow he also got elected twice!! I'll say it again folks - Perry is even more dangerous than Bush because he is much more power hungry. There is no limit to what people like him will do for personal gain for himself and his buddies.

Texas is what it is, but not everybody in Texas is a sleezeball. It is actually quite a purple state but with the redistricting that has taken place in the last 20 years it is very difficult to get a progressive elected to any statewide office.

Peace