When Rick Perry flubbed his presidential chances so badly on the national stage, there were many among his supporters who were bewildered at his seeming inability to transfer his many successes in Texas to the national stage. Although just as frustrated as those folks were, some of us were not quite as baffled because there was a suspicion within us that Rick Perry simply didn't want the job nor the heat and heartbreak it entails. There was a sense that Perry was simply contented with being the popular and longest serving governor of the world's 14th or so largest economy. He was a big frog in a big luxuriant pond who didn't really see any advantage to becoming a bigger frog in the admittedly larger, but stagnating swamp the first four years of Obama's reign had produced. If Perry did indeed self-destruct it was probably not consciously; but there's an inescapable feeling that he certainly did not give it his best shot. He had to well know how contentious national governance had...(Read Full Post)