Texas success becoming a national rallying cry for conservatives...

Elections are about choices, and there are still a lot of peeps out there who give Obama and the Democrats a pass even though they have controlled Washington really since 2006...

It is a valid argument for Obama to make that things weren't good at the end of the Bush term... but don't forget that the Bush tax cuts sparked some of the strongest and most consistent economic growth in a generation. Years of nearly uninterrupted prosperity were shattered by the housing bubble's pop and the financial melt down near the end of Bush's second term... we could argue all day about what role SarbOxley or Fannie and Freddie had to do with all of that... we could argue about the energy price shock of summer of 2008... we could argue about a lot of things... but the fact remains that things were going well in 2006 when Democrats swept into power in Congress... the unemployment rate was below 5%... things were good. Today things are no good... no good at all...

Then Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over... Obama was right there with them in the senate controlling the agenda. When the Bush buffer was gone, they went all out. The worst of the pain economically has been over the 18 months of Obama's administration.

To beat Democrats in 2010, Republicans can't just say "I am not a Democrat" and hope to win. They can't just bash Obama only... they have to prove they are adults who can lead... they have to remind voters that Republican ideas are good... that they work...

Rick in Texas has the formula down pat... bash Washington, but then point to all the articles and studies showing Texas on top economically...

Others are catching on.

Nationally, conservatives are pointing to Texas as proof that Republicans can govern and can lead us back to prosperity. Take this really really great blog written by a young gun College Republican for example (link). Excerpt follows...

As we watched other large, populous states like California, Illinois, and New York fall into a heavy and stifling economic downturn, Texas managed to keep its head above water and avoid the deep recession that continues to grip most other states. The southern state has managed to maintain, all things considered, a sound economy due to one of the things Texans are so adamant about: limited government. The Weekly Standard describes the situation as follows: “a state known for size and excess has succeeded because of public policies that avoided excesses of big government overspending”.

Even before the nation’s economy began to completely tank, it was predicted that Texas would stand to weather the storm better than others. Dale Craymer, chief economist of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, predicted back in 2008 that “if the nation gets the flu, [Texas is] going to get a bad cold,” ”If the nation gets a cold, [Texas will] get the sniffles.”

This was exactly the case. Texas job growth, especially in the private sector, topped the nationwide average for the past decade. While most of the nation saw major net growth in government jobs, Texas continued to follow an economic policy that encouraged capital investment and job creation—helping to lessen the affects of this nasty recession without the help of a massive and essentially useless stimulus bill. Its unemployment rate has consistently remained solidly below the national rate throughout the recession.

But for what other reasons has Texas fared better? In a nutshell, the explanation is in the way it views the role of government. The governor of Texas (and former President Bush’s successor) Rick Perry explained that “in Texas, we have long based our approach on individual liberty and initiative, believing that families, entrepreneurs and individual citizens deserve the opportunity to strive and succeed — with minimal government interference.”

Republicans all around the country can point to Rick down in Texas and say they will do things just like he did... Texas is not just rhetorically the model for the nation in Rick's head... it actually is becoming the model for conservative bloggers, magazines like the Weekly Standard, and other Republican politicians in other states.

Even Meg Whitman in California of all places basically said she would emulate what Rick is doing in Texas (link).