Perry of Paint Creek

Independent:

Kenny Thompson's heart was in his mouth one spring morning 30 years ago as he watched a small plane bounce down the earthen air strip across the road from his house, mud caked on its wheels, its engine screaming in a way he had never heard before. "He was revving her up so tight and there was a point, you know, when either he pulled her up or put on the brakes. I didn't honestly know if he was going to make it".

The pilot, he was to find out later, was Rick Perry, who had grown up in the same remote community of Paint Creek, here in North Texas, and had just finished five years in the Air Force. He missed the crown of the road by inches, recalls Mr Thompson, a county commissioner here. The plane in bright yellow colours then passed below the power lines on the other side before finally lifting into the sky.

This was Perry all over. He was the kid who had once pushed a huge snowball from a classroom roof meaning to hit members of the girl's basketball team; it landed on the school superintendent instead. "If everyone knew everything he done as a kid, they would be shocked," says Don Ballard, a childhood friend and schools superintendent today. At university he dropped firework bombs into the upstairs plumbing so they would explode inside lavatory bowls three floors below, under unsuspecting bottoms.

There is affection in these tales because Little Rick, as they used to call him, was later to start a political career that eventually led him to the governor's mansion in Austin, four hours south of here. But as Perry makes his late bid for the Republican presidential nomination, there are some in Paint Creek and in Austin who wonder whether this time the gamble is too big. They see mud on his wheels again.

All his political life, Mr Perry has been blessed with good luck, even going back to 2000 when the Supreme Court crowned George W Bush president. Then Lieutenant Governor, Mr Perry replaced Bush as Governor of Texas without an election. This year, he's been lucky too. The weak economy has made President Barack Obama suddenly vulnerable; and other Republicans – notably Governors Hailey Barbour and Mitch Daniels – who might have leapt into the nomination race and blocked his path chose not to.

...

While some call Perry lucky, they might call Obama unlucky. But, the Texas economy is not based on luck. What has worked in Texas can help restore this nation if we are willing to give it a try. Lucky leaders are usually the smartest.