Another month, another torrent of Beltway press attention heaped on a Republican candidate who might run for president. (Does anyone recall this kind of breathless press interest paid to Democratic wannabes in previous election cycles?) The Republican at the center of the current media spotlight is Texas' Republican governor, Rick Perry. Pundits and reporters seem to be especially impressed by Perry's performance at a Republican conference this past weekend.
From ABC News:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry stole the show this weekend at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, firing up conservatives with an anti-government, tea-party message.
What's curious about Perry's mostly positive coverage in recent days (i.e. he'd “instantly be a formidable candidate”) is that when laying out the pluses and minuses of a possible Perry campaign, more and more journalists are ignoring the issue of his Tea Party-friendly comments about Texas seceding from the union:
From April 17, 2009 [emphasis added]:
Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday stuck by his earlier statement that Texas can secede from the United States — a far-reaching, legally questionable prospect that nevertheless drew Perry a fresh favorable mention by Rush Limbaugh, one of the nation's leading conservative voices.
Perry never fully advocated secession. But he did seem to leave the door open for future action if the federal government continued “to thumb their nose at the American people.”
Even flirting with the idea of secessionism, or indirectly talking it up, is a radical path for any American politician to take. And it seems rather obvious that if someone decided to run for president of the United States after having sympathized with the idea of seceding, that that would be problematic. That it would become a thing the candidate would have to address and overcome. And it would be a thing the press would routinely mention.
But not for Rick Perry.
Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal ran a long Perry piece on the front page today detailing the possible “roadblocks” he'd face if he decided to run for president. But at the Journal, the fact that Perry seemed to suggest Texas could secede from the union did not even rank as one of the significant “liabilities” he'd face as a candidate. In fact, the issue was never even mentioned in the article.
Same with Politico, which recently hyped Perry's campaign chances and noted how the governor “oozes Texas swagger.” Like the Journal, Politico produced a checklist of Perry's pros and cons as a possible candidate.
Left unmentioned? Seceding.
Make no mistake; the political press is doing Rick Perry a big favor this week by hyping his possible presidential aspirations. The press is doing Perry an even bigger favor by flushing his secession comments down the memory hole.