I hate it when a very good question gets answered behind a pay wall, but I guess that’s how you get subscribers. But Colleen McCain Nelson talks about a question that popped up over the dinner table a few days ago – if Rick Perry’s campaigning for president, and David Dewhurst is campaigning for Senate, who is running the state?
McCain Nelson points out that yes, in this day and age it’s easy to work remotely. But she also points out that Perry is known to be an intense campaigner. She says:
“Sure, Perry can remain plugged in from afar. But after traveling with the presidential candidates in 2004, I can assure you that the campaign trail is all-consuming. Days start darn early, end too late and become a blur of lunch boxes and stump speeches on auto-repeat.
Perry is nothing if not an intense campaigner. It’s tough to believe he’ll be immersed in the nitty-gritty of governing back home.”
But before you start shouting liberal newspaper slams conservative candidates, McCain Nelson also has some choice criticism for Barack Obama, saying that Illinois voters were similarly shortchanged when their freshman senator “launched a presidential bid just two years into his first term.”
The answer? “The fix, of course would be to compel candidates to go all in and require them to resign before seeking another office,” she writes. “Dallas’ city charter forced former Mayor Tom Leppert to bow out early when he launched his Senate bid.”
2 comments
Being ignored by Rick Perry is the best thing that has happened to Texas in this millienium. Too bad the campaign won’t last until the end of his term as governor.
Who’s minding the state? Same ones as always: the lobbyists.