Politico's Katie Glueck must have been really desperate for something newsworthy as a Saturday column topic.
She apparently believed it was worth devoting over 1,500 words to a writeup whose key point was that "at least one Republican" doesn't like Texas Governor Rick Perry's aggressive attempts to persuade companies in other states to relocate to or expand in the Lone Star State. She cited only one. Even that person person's criticism was very mild, and it came from someone who, because of his position, couldn't say that what Perry is doing is great even if he wanted to without risking his job. Despite the overdose of verbiage, Glueck also never provided any details of Texas's outsized contribution to the nation's overall mediocre post-recession job growth.
But first, the identity of the "at least one" -- and at most one -- Republican constituting a "backlash" (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Rick Perry faces backlash over jobs raids
Gov. Rick Perry’s high-profile efforts to lure jobs to Texas from other states may be good business and smart politics back home, but they’re infuriating to prominent Democrats around the country.
And now at least one Republican business leader says Perry’s taking the Lone Star swagger a little too far.
... Some of those who have been on the receiving end say that Perry raises eyebrows as much for his grating style as for the substance of his pitch.
“The biggest difference with Perry was, he was kind of like a Roman emperor coming into town with horns blowing in front of his arrival, his parade,” Doug Whitley, the president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, told POLITICO.
Whitley, a Republican who said he “generally [doesn’t] have any negative comments to make about” Perry, was referring to an April trip the governor took to Chicago, where he also addressed a conference.
“It was unusual in the fact that he spent some money to buy radio airtime to announce his arrival. … I thought it was a bit over the top,” Whitley added. “Other governors tend to do it with a little less fanfare but no less desire to make a positive impression in the Illinois business community.”
Perry got far more value in return from the highly publicized whining of Democrats like California Governor Jerry Brown and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel than the relative pittance his state spent on radio spots.
The most Glueck would say about Perry's efforts is that "The governor’s bids to encourage companies to relocate — critics call it “poaching” — are the most aggressive in the nation, according to experts."
In March 2012, Jan Norman at the Orange County Register covered a study released by Spectrum Location Solutions noting that "In 2011, 254 California companies moved some or all of their work and jobs out of state, 26% more than in 2010." Its CEO told Norman that in 2011 in Orange County alone, "Twenty-eight of these companies were in Orange County. Seven of them moved or expanded to Texas, three to Mexico, two to Washington and one each to 16 other states." Some of the details:
Here are some of the Orange County departures in 2011:- Legacy Electronics to South Dakota
- EDM Laboratories to Texas
- Ossur Americas moved knee-brace manufacturing from Foothill Ranch to Mexico, laying off 109 people in Orange County...
- Kairak closed its Fullerton plant and moved the work to Fort Worth, Texas.
- LeMaitre Vascular Inc., based in Massachusetts, closed its Laguna Hills factory
- AccentCare, a home healthcare provider, moved its corporate headquarters from Irvine to Dallas.For all California departures, the top destinations were Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and a tie for Utah and Florida ...
Let's quickly compare Texas's overall seasonally adjusted employment performance to that seen in California and Illinois, the states in which the two people whining the most about Perry's pushiness reside (most of the detail obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is here):
The Lone Star State's period of job loss during the recession and after its official end was far shorter (16 months overall, 17 in the private sector) than in California (31 and 30), Illinois (23 in both cases), and Metro Chicago (23 overall; seasonally adjusted private-sector data is not available).
As seen in the highlighted areas, Texas's degree of job loss during the recession was far lower than any of the others. Additionally, unlike the three other areas compared, Texas has added more than twice as many jobs as it lost, while the other three areas are far from recovering.
Politico's Glueck noted that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel poked fun at Perry recently for his 2011 GOP primary debate gaffe where he failed to come up with a list of three things when he said he would. Well, Emanuel doesn't even need to worry about counting to one when it comes to Metro Chicago job growth during the first four months of 2013, because the area's seasonally adjusted employment has dropped so far this year by 1,600.
Back on point: Glueck couldn't find a Republican who would harshly criticize Perry, but in her headline pretended that she did. Truth be told, state leaders around the country who aren't hard leftists would rather see their states replicating Texas's performance instead of trying to score cheap political points reviling its governor.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
