So I see where former Texas governor Rick Perry is running for President again. I guess it’s like eating potato chips; once you start it’s hard to stop even if you’re not actually enjoying them.

Frankly I thought Perry was a good candidate in 2012… until I saw him campaign. Now it just calls to mind an unkind but apt comment long ago from, I think, John Ehrlichman about a congressman developing “inexplicable” presidential ambitions. And Tacitus’ verdict on Galba that “omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset” except at least Galba was surprisingly bad at doing the job, not at filling out the initial application.

Politics does strange things to people’s judgement in all kinds of areas conspicuously including “I can win this” and “I should try”. But do we really have to watch?

Photo: Andrew Cline / Shutterstock

John Robson
John Robson is a documentary filmmaker, an Invited Professor at the University of Ottawa and a commentator-at-large with News Talk Radio 580 CFRA in Ottawa. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D in American history from the University of Texas at Austin. He has worked in academia, think tanks and politics as well as doing print, radio and television journalism in Canada, and produced and hosted the documentary The Great War Remembered for Sun News Network in 2014. He is married to Brigitte Pellerin.

You are welcome to republish this Policy Options article online or in print periodicals, under a Creative Commons/No Derivatives licence.

Creative Commons License