Will Rick Perry lose his superpowers?

The Statesman wonders what will happen to Rick Perry once his incredibly incompetent Presidential campaign finally implodes and he comes limping back home to Texas.

Even as Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign works to get back on track, some are beginning to question whether his ability to govern in Texas will suffer if he returns home in defeat.

“He was in control of Texas government like no governor before,” said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson. “Then he goes out there and barely gets across the Red River before he tips over and embarrasses himself time and again, taking the edge off the respect tending toward fear of him in Texas politics. A good deal of that may be gone if he does come back.”

But whatever public relations hit Perry might take, his ultimate power within state government remains intact: Perry appointees control every state policy board, and at least 100 people who have drawn their monthly paycheck by working for Texas’ longest-tenured governor are now positioned to run state agencies. It’s the closest thing Texas has had to a cabinet form of government.

“It has a tremendous impact because it enables the governor to make sure those agencies carry out their duties and responsibilities consistent with his policies and his philosophy,” said Larry Soward, a former Perry employee who once was named by the governor as a state environmental commissioner.

“Everything from commissioners to executive directors to just staff at an agency, you’ve seen a lot of governor’s policy analysts be put into key spots at state agencies,” Soward said.

There’s no question that Perry exerts huge influence over state government due to all of the appointments he has made. That influence will last a long time, years beyond Perry’s expiration date as Governor. I don’t see anything, even a historically clownish national campaign, changing that.

What will be worth watching is Perry’s relationship with the Lege and the balance of power between the two. The Lege largely bowed and scraped to Perry in 2011 after the Republicans’ electoral rout, but I seriously doubt we’ll see that level of deference to him in 2013. For one thing, I doubt that the Lege’s priorities will coincide as neatly with the Governor’s as it did this year. For another, it’s not like the Lege was used to showing deference to the Governor before this year. Perry will no doubt project confidence and an air of “nothing has changed” as he did after his 39% win in 2006, but it feels different this time. I could be wrong, but I do believe he will be diminished at least a little, because perceptions matter and he’s not going to be perceived as being so all-powerful any more. I don’t know how much difference it will make, but I do believe it will be different. BOR has more.

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