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I have read the title and the article repeatedly, but I read it again as you requested. How you can read this and come away with the sense that the author is saying anything other than career politicians are more qualified than businessmen for high office is beyond me. He does not use the word 'statesmen' as you did. He does not qualify successful three term governors. He even goes so far as to imply that Corzine was a failure because he was a businessman and Christie is a success because he is a politician. That logic requires you to suspend all other factors like Corzine is a raging crony socialist.

You are the one who has hitched Rick Perry to this delusional article which under normal circumstances would require a Barf! tag on Freerepublic.

Amid the slings of outrageous fortune, the politician learns how to inspire and persuade, how to avoid unnecessary minefields and pick his fights, when to accommodate his opponents and when to confront them, how to build a coalition and keep it together. A businessman might have similar challenges, but they aren’t played out in the public arena in the context of a balky, democratic political system that rarely moves on the basis of one man’s orders.

I understand that someone who has never held political office will have his handicaps, and they are large. Government is completely unlike any business in the world. I think it's common sense that governors are the closest in experience to the Presidency.

That being said, There are certainly drawbacks to spending 27 straight years in elected office. People who have made a career pandering for votes for the next election and spend every waking moment grasping for power are destroying this country. Can you prove Rick Perry isn't like all those others? Did he vote for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale over Ronald Reagan? Did he vote for Michael Dukakis in 1988 after Al Gore dropped out? Was the Democrat Party in Texas from 1984 to 1989 more conservative than the Republican Party of Texas in the same time period? Were the ideals, goals and plans of the Democrat Party in the middle of Ronald Reagan's term more conservative than the Republicans? Or was he a Democrat because it was the most likely path to win and keep elected office? Why did he switch parties? Did he have a massive conservative epiphany in 1989? After eight years of watching Ronald Reagan did he finally, one year after campaigning for Al Gore, figure out that republicans were more conservative than Democrats? Or was he switching horses when he saw his state, or more importantly his district, turning Republican? Right after becoming a Republican he ran for state wide office, rather than stay in the minority in the State Legislature. Coincidence? Maybe. But it's a pattern followed by thousands of career politicians.

As I told you before, Governor Perry is my second choice at this time. Romney, Huntsman and Johnson are the only other governors and are completely unqualified because of their positions. Gingrich, Paul and Bachmann have zero executive experience. That makes Perry #2 on the list. But he walks like a career politician and quacks like a career politician. And unlike the author of the article I don't think that's a compliment.

The last paragraph of the Lowry piece:

And the businessman’s work doesn’t depend on a philosophical commitment to a set of ideas. The best politicians, like the non-businessman Ronald Reagan, translate their principles into reality in a way that rises to statesmanship. It’s not important not to be a politician; it’s important to be a really good one.

Rick Perry has said he voted for Ronald Reagan. He said he voted for Carter because he (as many did) felt he would be good for farmers. But then he realized the party he'd been raised in, wasn't his party -- the growing Republican party was -- and he became the first Republican Lt. Gov of Texas since Reconstruction.

The author agrees with you that the values of Corzine and Christie had more to do with whether or not they were successful as Governors.

He didn’t say Corzine failed because he was a successful businessman, he said that being a businessman was not sufficient to make Corzine a success as governor. Neither was it necessary for Christie to have been a businessman.

We know what Governor Perry has done for over 10 years, with his appointments, his directives and all but one of his Executive Orders supported by the voters of Texas.

His appointed judges get re-elected, his heads of agencies and boards are vilified by the anti-God, anti-life side, but win approval from the people and, for the most part, of the Senate.

An example: Every time the Senate turns down his choice for Chair of the State Board of Education - the members are elected by their districts and the Governor appoints the Chair who has already served for two years before being confirmed - the Governor just appoints another conservative member to the Chair.
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/public-education/perry-appoints-cargill-head-state-education-board/