Rick Perry’s rhetoric is conservative, his record is fairly conservative, and I think his instincts are conservative.
I’m not sure his principles are conservative. That’s what I’ll be trying to figure out today.
Perry knows he likes low taxes and low regulation. He can point to evidence indicating that they worked in Texas. But does he have arguments to back this up? Does he have an economic grounding for his conservative views? A philosophical one?
I think a lack of economic principles might explain Perry’s tendency towards corporatism. The distinction between “pro-business” and “pro-market” seems to be lost on him. Without a deep foundation, a conservative is likely to become a liberal in a crisis — remember Bush and TARP.
But also, I might be wrong about Perry. That’s what I’ll be looking for — why does Perry believe what he believes?
