What Would Rick Perry Bring To The Presidency?

Rick Perry as President of the United States!?! Is this possible? Am I having a bad dream? Yes, I am saying this is a possibility. Governor “Good Hair” Perry has a chance at becoming the president of our country. After all, he did defy reality and become Governor of Texas, which is only a hop-skip-and-a-jump from the White House.

He can do it because he’s got, well, himself. He is incredulous, unbelievable, wears boots, says anything that comes to his mind without being embarrassed and has great hair. Besides, he also has a very smart and tough wife backing him up. Frankly, I think she would make a better president than our good governor — but that’s another story.

Nevertheless, what would it look like if Perry did become president?

If Governor Good Hair were to become the president, all we have to judge him on is his record as a politician and his time in office. Will the Secret Service allow him to continue wearing his gun? After all they did relent and allow President Obama to keep his Blackberry. Does that mean that the Secret Service guys who run with Perry cannot use coyote suits as camouflage when they run with him?

In the real policy world, will we see less funding for education at the national level as we have seen in Texas? How about our other social services? Will President Perry spearhead the attack on Social Security and Medicare?

How about in the area of foreign policy? What will Perry say to our friends in Europe? Will they understand his Texas accent? What about the Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Pakistanis, Mexicans, Brazilians, all the countries in the Middle East, and so forth? Will he shoot off his mouth and get us in more trouble than we already are in or will we simply withdraw aide, invade or take some other drastic action when someone disagrees with us?

What will Perry do about the congressionally imposed debt limit? Worry about it, or just convince all of the Republicans and Democrats in congress not to worry about it and continue to spend? I do not think we will see any new taxes or other sorts of revenue raising strategies to deal with the debt because he doesn’t believe in such strategies.

Before casting a presidential vote for Governor Good Hair, voters need to sit down, not pay any attention to his folksy rhetoric and realistically assess what he would do if he were in office as president — always keeping in mind that his only experience is being the governor of the great state of Texas, knowing that his record there leaves much to be desired.

Dr. Henry Flores is a professor of Political Science and Dean of the Graduate School at St. Mary’s University, in San Antonio, Texas.