Texas Politician Job Requirements

ataxingmatter on Texas  (via Mark Thoma):

As Krugman notes, even with the oil and gas prosperity to put a surface gloss on the Texas economy, facts for little folk on the ground are not so nice--one in four lacks health insurance;  more Texans that do work have work that pays only minimum wage compared to other states; and unemployment has lately soared to 8.2 percent.  Perry's approach to government can't be applied at a national level to achieve any good results. As a former Texan (I graduated from high school in Carthage, Texas, a small town just south of the sprawling city of Longview where my family still resides), I must say I feel particularly queasy thinking about Texas Governor Rick Perry's presidential aspirations.  I believe George W Bush will be viewed historically as one of our worst presidents--he oversaw a pullback on regulation and oversight that ensured that bank speculation would move us into the Great Recession, and he capped that with a Treasury Secretary from Wall Street--Paulson--who engineered a huge (and ultimately necessary because of the Bush deregulatory policies) bailout of the Big Banks (and indirectly of their Big Investors) but one with no strings attached!  He led us into two senseless, interminable, and terribly costly --in both lives and dollars--wars of choice, for reasons primarily to do with furthering the military-industrial complex and creating politically useful 'enemies' to replace the anti-communism politics that came in so handy to Reagan and Johnson in their presidencies.
Rick Perry would be even worse.
Partly it's that Texas breeds a very special category of politician--one that is tied much too closely to Big Oil and one that considers business to be nothing less than the central component of the State.  What's good (short-term) for business is what Texan politicians try to provide.

Again, congratulations to Texans for feeling good about yourselves.  But please, quit sending the nation your goofy, not-too-bright governors to campaign for President.  The last one really effed things up.  I sure as hell don't want another.  If I liked what was accomplished in your state, I'd move there.  But I'll move to the damn moon before I move to your state.  Hopefully, some of the spare Tea Partiers here, who think that Rick Perry would make a good president, will move to Texas.  Please, call this guy back home.