You are way too deep into the weeds.
His boyhood values were like going to church and Sunday School, being an Eagle Scout, hunting, fishing, guns, strong family, married his childhood sweetheart, still married to her, going to Aggieland, serving in the AF.
Just because he came from a Democrat county that had gotten federal money doesn’t change any of that.
His father was a tailgunner in WWII and flew 35 missions over Nazi Germany.
They worked the land but didn’t own it. They got sweaty and dirty and they got up before dawn and went to bed after dark.
They were poor.
But they loved America. And they believe in Capitalism. It was not their doing that FDR put all this federal stuff into the pipeline. What were they supposed to do about it?
Rick Perry became a Republican, but he always believed he was conservative.
He voted for Reagan twice, and for George HW Bush over Dukakis...this, after trying one last time to stay a Democrat and infamously backing algore that year.
The next year, he did what millions of his fellow Texans have done through the years, leave the Democrat party for good.
As for Haskell county, for 36 years it was represented in Washington DC by the king of the Bluedogs, Charlie Stenholm. He talked conservative but voted for every Dem Speaker candidate that came down the pike. no matter how liberal. In return, he was the long time chairman of the House Ag Committee, and is now an Ag industry lobbyist in DC.
He ran that scam a long time, but that district finally threw him out and put in a Republican.
We’re actually being told he’s now an “Outsider” yet he’s been a career politician for about 27 years?
Amazing.
Yes, that is a point Monk either missed or decided to ignore.
Texas democrats back in the day were conservative. I watched my own family as they left the democrat party. They were always conservative. But when Texas democrats started to get as bad as the rest of the democrats, we all started voting Republican.
I won’t say the last democrat I voted for as it might date me a little too much.