Perry v Obama

Texas Governor Rick Perry could well win the Republican  nomination. Already former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has pulled out after a poor showing in Ohio.

The Atlantic looks at Perry and Obama on jobs:

If Texas Governor Rick Perry is the Republican nominee for president, the 2012 election will have a striking parallelism. President Obama would ask voters to overlook a bad national economy for which he’s not fully responsible. The Republican challenger would ask voters to credit him for an impressive state economy for which he is also not fully responsible.

There are two themes here. One is that the likelihood of a politician to take ownership over an economy is directly proportional to the health of the economy. The other lesson is that even as political leaders can try to guide an economy, they are ultimately victims, or beneficiaries, of its underlying fundamentals.

The Texas miracle is, like so many miraculous things, complicated upon closer inspection. Texas accounted for 40 percent of the nation’s new jobs since June 2009. This impressive statistic is the result of geology, geography, history, and politics.

Texas is only 8% of the US population, so 40% of new jobs is an impressive figure.

Texanomics is well-suited to a recession stemming from a financial crisis. When consumers’ balance sheets are hurting, they seek out low cost-of-living. That’s Texas. When companies don’t have access to credit, they hire cheaper labor. Texas again. When young couples look to start a family, they’re drawn to affordable housing, nice weather, and industries that hire: Energy and aerospace in Houston, health care and military in San Antonio, tech and education in Austin, and communications and more energy Dallas.

And the politics:

That the stimulus was a PR-failure says more about the strength of the downturn than the weakness of the administration. But that’s an economist’s distinction, not a campaign platform. The president’s message to voters asks them to see the successes of his policies by imagining how bad things would be without them. In a rotten economy, Obama has to run on a hypothetical. The governor’s economic message is simpler. It’s reality. It’s “Look at Texas.” Perry isn’t entirely responsible for the state’s economic record. But he’s a record worth claiming.

Perry is at 39% to win the Republican nomination on In Trade. Next is Romney on 32%.

Obama’s price for re-election is at 52%, down from 56% a few weeks ago.