Curious: what are the substantive, objective (non-inflammatory) differences between Perry and Bachmann?
Interesting question, PapaNew. IMO, the chief (apparent) difference between them is their respective view of American constitutional government — how they respectively understand it.
It seems to be the view of a substantial majority of the American people that constitutional government resides only in Washington, D.C. (Which of course, leaves out the States and the People, the other parties to our constitutional compact). The view seems to be that Washington writes the marching orders, and the states compelled to supinely carry them out.
It seems to me that Gov. Perry is aware that the Tenth Amendment was originally conceived as a means to "balance the respective powers" of the federal government vis-à-vis the several states. In short, I think he is far more sensitive to constitutionally-guaranteed "state's rights" — which include everything that the federal government has no express constitutional warrant for — and sees their constitutional exercise as the major means of checking the vast, overweening, expanding power of the federal government and the egregiously corrupt, self-dealing political class thereof.
Michelle Bachman's constitutional focus seems to be mainly on the federal government and its operations.
The problem is, the federal government is increasingly operating in areas that historically had fallen to the purview of the several states — e.g., education, marriage, abortion, and so forth. Without strong tenth-amendment push-back by the states, their legitimate powers will increasingly be transferred to elite Washington bureaucrats in a totally stifling and liberty-killing top-down — and largely unconstitutional — Big Brother government by "experts," a Leviathan eating out our substance, and quashing our historic American liberties.
The only other candidate that I've heard say anything about the Tenth Amendment is Newt Gingrich — who mentioned in passing that Perry's interest in the Tenth was well-justified, and that he had sparked his, Gingrich's, interest, too.
Anyhoot, since I believe it's well past time for the American people to make a searching reconsideration of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments (and their indispensable constitutional role), I'm a Perry supporter.
To me, he's the best constitutional conservative in the entire field. And so I hope I will have a chance to vote for him next November. If he can take his Tenth Amendment, balance-of-powers message to the people in a way they can appreciate, maybe I'll have a chance to do just that.