Saturday, June 15, 2013

Rick Perry's challenge to the blue states

Yesterday, as I was rolling along the New Jersey Turnpike on my way to Newark to fly to Texas, I heard the ad that Rick Perry and the State of Texas are running on New York radio. Take a listen for your morning chuckle...

I don't care who you are, that's funny.

The Perry ad makes explicit what we all know: That there is an argument going on between the blue and red state models in our great and ongoing national experiment. As we have all sorted ourselves in to ever more like-minded states, counties, and neighborhoods, we are drawing sharper distinctions in state and local policy even as our federal government struggles with gridlock. Perry makes an unreconstructed claim that the red-state model, most successfully implemented in Texas, is superior.

It will be interesting to see whether the regulatory blue states run countervailing ads in Texas. If they in fact believe their model is superior, why not make the case for it and thereby arrest their shrinking population and depleted tax base?

UPDATED: Commenter Eric Hines points out that New York has been running recruitment ads in Texas, although more in denial of the blue-state model than in support of it.

4 comments:

  1. Well, New York is running countervailing ads in Texas. Ads like this one.

    Oh, wait--they're talking about lowering tax costs.

    OK, there's this one.

    No, that one's talking about lowering taxes on both businesses and the middle class.

    Maybe not so countervailing, after all.

    Eric Hines

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eric, is New York actually running those ads in Texas and other red states? I have not seen them, but I don't watch very much television.

    ReplyDelete
  3. New York is running those ads in Texas. I can't speak for other red states; although I'd be surprised if lots of states--blue and red--weren't targets.

    Eric Hines

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, then, I stand corrected, sort of! Good for New York, even if there is no evidence that it is actually supporting its blue state model.

    ReplyDelete

Web Statistics