The question is a legitimate one. The incumbent Texas governor is someone who has teased at the need for his state to secede from the Union, trashed Social Security, and hewed to a far-right evangelical Christianity that is less subtle than George W. Bush’s wink-and-nod act, where he would regularly sneak dog-whistle references to the Bible into State of the Union and other speeches. A commentator at one of Perry’s more prominent home-state papers hints at the answer. [AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN]