When I moved to the Lone Star State in 2008 I got busy looking for a job. When I got a job I was still busy. I never really get a chance to watch the local news, and apparently when you register to vote in Texas they don't send you sample ballots and political propaganda like they do in California. Therefore, when someone said to me one day a couple of years ago, "Hey, you hear Perry shot a coyote while jogging with his dog?"
I said, "Who's Perry?"
Not being up on events in my new state of Texas, I had no idea that Rick Perry was Governor. I didn't know how long he had been Governor, but I did guess that he'd be Governor for a good long while with a story like that on his side. Especially when I learned that the gun was a laser-sighted pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets. My husband ventures that he was probably wearing cowboy boots at the time. Gotta love Texas! Rather than be impressed with his firepower, I thought it was ridiculous. I know coyotes, and though a pack of them might attempt to take down something as big as a calf, a lone coyote wouldn't dare go near a Labrador, much less an adult male human. It sounded to me that a big boy was out playing with his toy, with a coyote being the unlucky target. What a brave little Governor.
When I heard that Gov. Perry was running for President I was a little embarrassed to think that the rest of the nation was going to think Texas was full of rednecks swaggering around with guns. Until I realized that a lot of the nation already thinks that about Texas. After all, the last Governor of Texas was George W. Bush, the President who had more missteps in his speeches than Gerald Ford had walking down stairs. I like Texas, I like living here, and I think it has just as many but not more idiot rednecks than does California, where I had spent the rest of my life prior to becoming a naturalized Texan. Based solely on Gov. Perry shooting a coyote in questionable circumstances, I had decided that he was an embarrassment to my adopted state and that he would be a bad president.
Then came the scandal about Gov. Perry's relative owning a ranch that used to have a racial slur written on a rock ... what the heck? Are you kidding? How could this in any way effect Gov. Perry's ratings? Ah, but it did, and soon Gov. Perry dropped out of the race to resume his governmental life. It did make me wonder if I had judged him too soon. After all, I was reacting to a news story, possibly out of context, just like the silly people who think that if this southern guy has six degrees of separation from a painted-over racial slur on a rock, he must be a racist.
In future, I'm going to try not to be so quick to judge. I will try to get all the facts and keep an open mind, especially when researching candidates to vote for. After all, we're appointing someone to do a job, not to be our best friend.
I would like to add that George W. Bush was born in Connecticut, while Rick Perry was born in Paint Creek, Texas.
