Motorists heading north from Abilene to Haskell can easily speed past the small farm road that bisects miles of sun-baked cotton fields and leads down to the community school where Rick Perry graduated in 1968.
Long before the governor's office and presidential politics, he was Ray and Amelia's boy, the high-energy teenager who quarterbacked the six-man football team and helped with chores on his parents' farm.
To longtime friends like Wallar Overton, who has remained in the area as a farmer, he is still Ricky Perry.
Throughout his quarter-century in public life, Perry has often cited Paint Creek as a familiar touchstone. In many ways, as the 61-year-old Texas governor embarks on his run for the presidency, Paint Creek constitutes a microcosm of his vision for America -- resilient people, an unbendable work ethic and a value system built on home, family and church.
Perry described himself as a "product of a place called Paint Creek" in his presidential announcement speech in South Carolina on Saturday, recalling how his father returned from 35 missions in World War II to begin working a "little corner of land" as a tenant farmer.
Michele Bachmann has just won the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa, edging out Ron Paul by less than 200 votes. In all, 16,892 voters cast their ballot, with 4,823 going to Bachmann, 4,671 to Paul, and 2,293 to third-place finisher Tim Pawlenty. Rick Perry, who announced his candidacy today in South Carolina and was a write-in candidate here, received 718 votes, finishing sixth; Rick Santorum, who appeared to largely draw voters attracted by his hostility to gay marriage, finished fourth, just ahead of Herman Cain.
"Bachmann's faith-based organization was over the top," said a campaign staffer who said he was not authorized to speak for the campaign and so could not give his name (he donned a shirt embroidered with the phrase, "Jesus is Lord Over America"). He said that "members of churches, pastors, an extraordinary turnout. At the end of the day, the story is going to be the faith-based turnout." The staffer, who said he'd worked on other presidential campaigns in Iowa, added, "I've never seen anything like it." He attributed her success to a "very effective grassroots operation," and that religious voters saw her as "genuine. She wasn't ashamed. She boldly shared everything."
Bachmann supporters I spoke with were attracted to her religious rhetoric but also saw her as a champion for their hardcore economic concerns, and many told me they admired her stance (due to a "titanium spine," her campaign parlance repeated by supporters) against raising the debt ceiling. Dan Kahlstorf, at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, with his wife, Ren, on Friday, called Bachmann the "American Margaret Thatcher."
Paul's strong second-place finish is a result of his enthusiastic base, which was out in large and characteristically noisy force. Doug Wead, the long-time Bush adviser and confidant who devised the faith outreach strategy for both Bushes, is now advising the Paul campaign. At Paul's tent here in Ames, he declared, "This is the best campaign I've ever been a part of," adding that Paul isn't "phony."
Looming over the straw poll was Perry's announcement. While many voters I talked to shrugged it off, David Fisher, co-chair of Paul's state campaign, said, "Iowa Republicans believe he deliberately tried to steal the limelight."
Perry's announcement speech was shown on televisions in the tent organized by 501(c)(4) group Strong America Now, which hosted it for the 527 group, Americans for Rick Perry. Strong America Now executive director Peter O'Rourke, who said there was no formal affiliation between his group and Americans for Rick Perry, said Perry introduced legislation in Texas based on the organization's "Six Lean Sigma" cost-reduction program, which passed in the last legislative session. (The other major GOP candidates signed the group's debt reduction pledge in advance of the straw poll).
Newt Gingrich called the SAN program the "biggest idea of how to run government in 130 years, since the creation of the civil service." Gingrich claimed the program, if implemented on the national level, would save $5 trillion in federal spending over ten years. It "transcends presidential politics," he said, and will "shrink power in Washington, and grow citizens to fill the vacuum." Or at least it will give Gingrich, who finished eighth with just 385 votes in the straw poll, something to do.
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