By Daniel Henninger WSJ
Rick Perry has been governor of Texas for nearly 11 years. Rick Perry says Texas is the most successful state in America. Hes right. Texan economic output exceeds Mexicos & Australias and rivals Indias.
Does the logic of politics lead us to conclude that the governor of the nations most successful state ipso facto is the best man to be president of the economically gasping United States? We are about to find out.
Getting lost however among the governors adventures in the lovely hamlets of New Hampshire is that Texas with or without him has a story the rest of the U.S. should hear the parts of the country that want a better economy than theyve got now.
Texas unlike California isnt Americas most beautiful state. Through October this year parts of Texas had 90 days of 100 temperatures. Yet companies and people keep moving into the high heat of Texas.
Rick Perrys argument for himself is rooted in accounts of his efforts to bring companies to Texas. But the desire of businesses to sample Texas trail dust pre-dates Rick Perry.
In 1990 one of the worlds biggest companies Exxon Mobil left New York City for Dallas. Exxons former CEO Lee Raymond says the move in part was indeed about costs and New York States notoriously overbearing tax authority. But it was also about working amid a culture of competence.
Its just the attitude in Texas of getting things done and doing them well he says.
Mr. Raymond remarks that the economic policies that in time trapped the Northeast and Rust Belt in spirals of decline never touched Texas. But this is about something beyond low taxes and no unions:
In Texas the people tend to be farmers or individual businessmen and they have this attitude: We have to make do with what we have and work together to get things done and survive. Its can-do. That attitude permeates everything there.
A more recent corporate immigrant Alan Boeckmann until recently CEO of Fluor Corp. the engineering and construction firm says regulatory and legal hassles pushed Fluor out of California. Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley but California had its own version. There were constant class-action suits over Fluors benefits.
It could have been settled but not in California. Thats how the game is played there.
When word of the 2006 move got out California made no attempt to keep us. In Texas things started to happen quickly without us initiating them. The Irving Chamber of Commerce did orientation sessions for employees and spouses even helping with new-house searches.
Or little things: Irving on its own renamed a street Fluor Drive which in California or the Northeast would be laughable. Those Texas rubes!
Ed Trevis a smaller fish is also happy. A California-educated Brazilian immigrant and tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for 25 years Mr. Trevis moved Corvalent Corp. to Austin for similar reasons. He had to hire a firm just to do Californias compliance.
In California he says you are always doing something wrong.
Austin says technology consultant Bob Barker while taking a visitor around the nearby hills may have more Ph.Ds driving taxis than any city in the country. Austins famed population of big and small technology companies has suffered layoffs. But said Mr. Barker no one wants to leave.
They stay plugging into Austins numerous business-support networks. In Austin you discover a primary reason beneath Texas success: Its about competition plus collaboration. It seems everyone in Texas high-tech knows everyone and if they can
help each other they will.
David Booth who moved Dimensional Fund Advisorss headquarters to Austin from Santa Monica in 2008 puts Rick Perrys role in perspective: He understands his job isnt to get in the middle of everything. (Fluors Alan Boeckmann seconded that.) But Mr. Booth and others said this is also true of the Texas lieutenant governor its attorney general and the comptroller.
They are very supportive of business says Lee Raymond in the sense of moving things along. If there is a rock in the road they want to know what they can do to move it out of the way.
This isnt merely the pro-business bias of a Rick Perry or any other governor. Texas pro-business bias goes back about 175 yearsand never died. Its just that they believe in the whole Horatio Alger myth down here said Mr. Booth. Its hard to understand if you havent lived here.
And so Perrys Paradox: Rick Perry is a success because he nominally presides over an American tiger state a genuine free-market economy that doesnt much needor wanthis tender loving care. If the job before us is unwinding an unimaginably vast smothering national government is Lone Star Gov. Rick Perry the man for that job?
This much is obvious: Texas not California better be the American future. Somewhere inside of him Rick Perry of Texas understands this distinction. He should stick to
explaining what he knows.
Let voters figure out if he can explain it to Washington.
Daniel Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journals editorial page. Write to henninger@wsj.com
