Perry's Eyes on the Prize?

There's been a lot of speculation that Gov. Rick Perry is thinking about a run for the Republican vice-presidential nomination. First there was the recent trip by his campaign guy Dave Carney to New York to sniff around publishers. As Jim Moore (co-author with Wayne Slater of Karl Rove biographies The Architect and Bush's Brain) put it, "any time a governor or senator goes in search of a book deal, you know they're planning something." Then there was his recent foreign-policy-credentials-building trip to Israel – the first real international destination, as Moore noted, for then-governor and Perry role-model President George Bush. As Ed Sills, director of communications for the Texas AFL-CIO, told Chronic, "Does this sound like a man not interested in the vice presidency or the U.S. Senate?"

Now there's another development. Rep. Anna Mowery, R-Fort Worth, announced she was retiring at session's end, back in May. Fair enough, 20 years there must be enough for anybody. However, she then clarified this to say that she wasn't going to sit through the entire interim, and her resignation was effective as of August 13. This meant Perry had to schedule a special election to fill her seat for the rest of the session - the session with no session in it.

Now there's a few theories about why she did this. Maybe she just didn't want to be drawing that paycheck when she knew she wouldn't be serving her constituents next session. Maybe the commute was just getting to her. Or maybe it's that she didn't want to be stuck in a special session, and "no more lege" really meant "no more lege." Since Perry already said he might call one for an Iran divestment bill, did Mowery know something we didn't?