Rick Perry's Roots: A World of Difference From Washington

It's not hard to understand why Rick Perry hates Washington after driving along the farm-to-market roads where he was raised. His roots are rural: He's a farmer-rancher by trade, and his supporters say the reason he understands the plight of small business owners is because in his younger days he ran the family's cotton farm. He rails against centralized government because he thinks it's too far removed from the people it governs. It's certainly plain to see that the trappings of Washington couldn't be any farther away from the modesty of Paint Creek, where clouds of dust still blow behind the cars that travel from farm to farm, and signs other than those pointing out the names of roads are hard to come by; billboards and political displays are non-existent. Perry's parents still live in the house where he grew up in this tiny farming town about an hour's drive north of Abilene in West Texas, and they don't seem enthused by the prospect of their son, the Texas governor, running for the presidency. "We don't talk to reporters," his father, Ray, said when he answered his door this week. "Y'all twist around what we say." Born James Richard Perry in 1950 -- but called Rick since childhood -- he was the quarterback of his school's six-man football team, which, as Hill put it, is all there is to Perry's town. "Paint Creek is the school; the school is Paint Creek -- that's it," she said...more