Bitter Cold Hits Hell After Nation Editor Credits Private Sector in States That Are 'Doing Quite Well'

Chris Hayes, editor at large with the leftist-in-perpetuity Nation magazine and host of an MSNBC weekend show that starts in September, made an illuminating comment on the Rachel Maddow show the other night.

Hayes and Maddow were talking on Thursday about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's imminent jump into the presidential race and Perry's record as governor of Texas over the last decade. All that talk about prosperity in the Lone Star State during Perry's stint at the helm is so much hooey, Maddow and Hayes agreed (video after page break) --

HAYES: The biggest problem for Rick Perry is his record in Texas and even in a Republican primary that's going to come back to haunt him. Because Texas, and I know everyone wants to, you know, the conservatives like to tell us how it's the teachers' unions that are screwing up state budgets, well guess what, there's not a huge public-sector union in Texas and they have dire, dire, dire fiscal crisis right now. They are, they are billions of dollars in the hole. I mean, so, if you want to talk about responsible fiscal management, you have the governor, a sitting governor of a state that is in really bad fiscal shape.

MADDOW: But there is a grand campaign, a mainstream media campaign and a conservative campaign, to market Rick Perry as the jobs governor, because Texas, while being in atrocious fiscal shape, he will say, listen, I've been a jobs engine when the rest of the country has been draining jobs, we've been building them in Texas.

HAYES: Right, and the answer to that is that there's a lot of things that have nothing to do with Rick Perry obviously that have, you know, Nebraska is doing quite well, North Dakota is doing quite well, and that is not because of the governors in that (sic) states. That's because of sort of indodgenous (sic) endogenous things that have happened in the private sector in those states.

"Indodgenous"? (I'm spelling it the way Hayes said it). Presumably he meant "indigenous." Regardless, Hayes is saying it is not the governors, nor by extension their state governments, responsible for both of these states "doing quite well." He's saying it is due to the private sector -- a rare admission from a liberal. It's also worth noting that Hayes did not credit the federal government for the robust economies of Nebraska and North Dakota.

Needless to say, left wingers would deem the economies of both states beyond hope if their Republican governors were running for president.

Jack Coleman
Jack Coleman
Ex-liberal from People's Republic of Massachusetts