Dan Logue, our local District 3 assemblyman, is mentioned in a current Newsweek article about Governor Rick Perry of Texas. Conservatives nationwide, discouraged by the lackluster stable of Republican presidential hopefuls, are developing a serious mancrush on Perry, whose slash-spending-no-tax-hikes approach to Texas budget woes are causing ideological hearts to flutter.

“The Lone Star State’s economic success over the last decade has been notable. Since 2001 (roughly the tenure of Perry, the longest-serving Texas governor) the state has gained more than 730,000 jobs. In contrast, California, Texas’s antithesis in political culture and a favorite Perry rhetorical foil, has lost more than 600,000 jobs in the same period (and is on course to lose more jobs this year than last).

“That gap is why some of Perry’s most ardent support emanates from California. Dan Logue, a Republican in Sacramento’s state Assembly, says he began worrying when the chief executive officer of Carl’s Jr., an iconic California burger chain, told him that he was opening 300 restaurants in Texas this year, none in California, and was considering moving his headquarters to the Lone Star State. Logue asked him why. “He said, ‘It takes them two years to get permits in California,’?” Logue recalls. “It takes 45 days in the state of Texas.”

“In April Logue led a delegation of California political leaders, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic former mayor of San Francisco, to Texas on a learning tour. They met with Perry and with expat California businessmen, and heard the obvious: Texas is a right-to-work state with no income tax, a light regulatory regime, relatively low corporate tax rates, and a steady supply of cheap labor. Newsom, whose political identity is liberal, was struck by the state’s insistently business-friendly attitude. He says now, “You can’t be for jobs and anti-business”—which happens to be a stock phrase of Rick Perry’s.

“Logue was even more deeply impressed. He came away from his Texas visit convinced that Perry should be the next president. ‘I think that Rick Perry is potentially the next Ronald Reagan for the Republican Party,’ he says. Back in California, Logue launched a draft-Perry drive, with a Web page extolling Perry’s conservative virtues and urging a letter-writing campaign to persuade the Texan to run.”

Read full article: “The Right Aims at Texas“