Note to the gov: Convince me of that, and you'll have my support :)
.....The governor ran an anti-Washington campaign — one that included opposition to bailouts like the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which was passed during George W. Bush’s presidency. Perry also provoked considerable angst within his party by using members from Texas’s Republican delegation as punching bags in his race for reelection.
“Let’s be frank: Washington Republicans got us in the mess,” he said in a fundraising letter that sparked some angry congressmen to call for a closed-door meeting with Perry.
But Perry’s anti-Washington rhetoric worked, and after trailing by more than 20 percent in early polling, he ended up winning by more than 20 percent in the primary.
It was clear the Bush brand didn’t help Hutchison, as Texas stood with Perry.
So why did the Bush brand line up so staunchly with Hutchison? You can trace one possibility to 2008, when Perry launched an extended critique of Bush’s administration, brusquely attacking him for his record on spending as both governor and president.
“Let me tell you something,” Perry said at the time, according to the Austin American-Statesman, “George Bush was never a fiscal conservative. … Wasn’t when he was in Texas. ... I mean, ’95, ’97, ’99, George Bush was spending money.”
Perry even mocked the president’s rhetoric, saying “we made an error with that phrase ‘compassionate conservative’ ” — a reference to a catchphrase from the former president’s 2000 presidential campaign.
Perry’s most recent allusion to the Bush legacy was vaguer, but raised eyebrows around Texas. .......