The Politics of Texas a Poor Foundation for Perry's 2016 Aspirations

What the Hell Just Happened in Texas, and Why Was Rick Perry Just Indicted? from the Daily Beast
"The scandal that erupted Friday night involved millions of dollars, statehouse power plays—oh yeah, and alcohol, police, and masks."
I am beginning to wonder if the geographical calculus of presidential campaigns hasn't shifted in the last ten years or so.  For almost 100 years (following the Civil War) it was neigh impossible for a true southerner to get elected President.  LBJ broke that mold and since then four of the six elected presidents have been southerners (Carter, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II).  I look out on the electoral landscape now, and (in more ways than one) I think real southern candidates (and I don't count Hillary as one of these) are now borderline unelectable to the big chair.  It was for a time in the Democratic Party that they felt like they had to chart a centrist path and felt attracted to southern Dems (Lloyd Benson, Anne Richards) -- but I think the landscape has transformed enough now that southern Dems are too conservative for the larger Democratic Party while the base of the GOP has become too southern and too conservative wingnut to play outside the south.  Rick Perry is exhibit No. 1 for this theory.  In GOP circles, this clown was viewed as a "serious contender", as a real "heavyweight" and a genuine threat to Obama in 2012 and someone who seemed to be reclaiming some of his reputation so far in the GOP's pre-primary sweepstakes.  It has long been my contention that this talk was all largely an illusion.  This guy should never have been taken seriously.  Only within the southern, conservative alternative reality did he seem credible.  What passes for normal politics in the south and what behaviors go by with little or no commentary from the thoroughly desensitized press there will come into glaring relief on the national stage, a stage strewn with banana peels that, as Perry found out in '12, will send the Perrys, the Gingrichs, the Rubios, the Jindals, and the Huckabees careening into the orchestra pit in very short order.  Looking ahead, I take it for granted that anyone the GOP nominates in 2016 will have a lock on about 40% of the electorate -- but who out there in GOP-land has the right combination to get substantially more or to get on the other side of 50%?  I don't see anyone at this point who could even come close. -- Nuggetsman