Someone challenged me on the “Rove switched Perry to Republican” so here’s this
Karl Rove says he and consultant David Weeks persuaded Rick Perry to switch parties and run for state agriculture commissioner
Texas Gov. Rick Perry draws mention in GOP consultant Karl Rove’s autobiography with attention
focused on Perry’s win for lieutenant governor in 1998 and Rove’s role in his pivotal earlier
switch from the Democratic to Republican party while he was a third-term member of the Texas House.
Rove writes: “Rick Perry had planned to retire from the legislature until his best friend,
David Weeks, and I talked him into switching parties and running for the GOP nomination for
agriculture commissioner.” His book, “Courage and Consequence, My Life as a Conservative
in the Fight,” was published March 9.
*********************
[snip] "At the beginning of his six years in the State House, Mr. Perry shot down the notion that he might switch parties, despite the conservative leanings that put him at odds with his party leaders.
After former United States Representative Kent Hance of Lubbock defected to the Republican Party in 1985, Mr. Perry told the Abilene paper he was “disappointed,” saying he planned to change his party rather than defect to the other side.
The gap was obvious by 1989, his last year in the Legislature, when Mr. Perry carried a workers’ compensation insurance bill that angered Texas trial lawyers, then a powerful force in state politics. That same year, The Dallas Morning News named Mr. Perry one of the state’s 10 best legislators, but he was criticized by another publication.
The liberal Texas Observer called Mr. Perry the “Benedict Arnold of the Democratic Party” for siding too often with Mr. Clements.
“If The Texas Observer ever says anything good about me, then I’ve been hit on the head and they can send me back home,” Mr. Perry said.
Rumors that Mr. Perry would defect to the Republican Party — and run against Jim Hightower, the populist Democratic agriculture commissioner — picked up steam by late 1989. On Sept. 29, Mr. Perry made it official at a Capitol news conference. At his side were Fred Meyer, chairman of the Texas Republican Party, and Senator Phil Gramm, a former Democrat, who was aggressively courting would-be converts.
Mr. Perry’s timing, now legendary, could not have been better. He was one of only two Republicans elected to nonjudicial statewide office in 1990. Eight years later, Republicans swept every one of them.
“Perry has been a risk taker,” said Mr. Hance, the party switcher who became the chancellor of Texas Tech University. “And if you look at Perry’s timing in every race, he’s been the golden guy.” Taking a Look at the Governor, Back When He Was a Democrat
Perry’s best friend is a political consultant? What’s the story on this David Weeks?
If so, do you have Perry nightmares?
Or, do you only have Perry nightmares without sleep?
Hahaha I guess that would be me.
Since I'd recently read that Phil Gramm had that role, I politely asked if you had a source for your belief it was Rove. Thanks for looking it up.
Didn't know I had issued a "challenge". :-)