Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s clashes with conservative activists are nothing new: A bitter battle over racial preferences and liberal judges has raged in the tight-knit world of Lone Star politics since 2001. In the days following George W. Bush’s election to the presidency, the newly minted Gov. Perry had a chance to prove his mettle by nominating justices to fill two Texas Supreme Court vacancies. Following Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, conservative activists had been awakened to a new kind of politics — the politics of judicial nominations — and Perry’s selection...