Lloyd Doggett (right) has vowed to 'sound the alarm' about Perry across the country. | AP Photos Texas pol emerges as Perry critic

Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett isn’t running against Rick Perry, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he’s targeting the Republican presidential candidate.

While Perry’s actual opponents have so far taken only vague jabs at the Texas governor, Doggett, a long-serving liberal, has emerged as Perry’s chief attack dog.


He’s taken to MSNBC to hammer the governor over his handling of public schools in Texas. He’s spoken at an anti-Perry rally on the steps of the state capitol, tweaking the governor for carrying a concealed firearm and vowing to “sound the alarm” about Perry across the country. On his Facebook page, he’s poked Perry for his “boot-in-mouth syndrome.”

Doggett’s latest attack came Friday afternoon, when he hosted a conference call with reporters in which he railed against Perry’s assertion that he’s presided over a jobs boom in the state – a claim the Democrat ripped as a “Texas tall tale.”

It’s a surprisingly vigorous effort for the nine-term Democratic congressman, but it reflects the urgency with which he is trying to rescue his imperiled political career. Doggett, who’s facing an uphill post-redistricting primary battle, is racing to appeal to Democratic voters — and the longtime governor makes a convenient foe: He’s a confrontational conservative who Texas liberals love to hate.

“It was a little jarring when it started. But then I realized it was pretty cagey,” said Harold Cook, a veteran Austin-based Democratic consultant. “Doggett has a fight against him in a Democratic primary, and those voters aren’t Rick Perry fans. It’s a pretty good move on his part.”

“He’s trying to regain some strength among Democratic primary voters,” said Dan McClung, a Democratic consultant in the state. “He’s got someone good to flog – Perry is wide open among liberal Democrats. You can’t lose talking about Rick Perry.”

Doggett’s path to a tenth term is precarious. He’s running against state Rep. Joaquin Castro, whose name is political gold in South Texas Democratic politics. Castro’s brother, Julio Castro, is San Antonio’s mayor and his mother, Rosie Castro, is a prominent grassroots activist in the state. Making matters more difficult for the congressman: He’ll have to run outside his Austin political base, where the former state senator and state Supreme Court justice has been in elected office for nearly four decades.

Matt Angle, a Democratic consultant who has been involved in Texas politics for years, pointed out that in saturating the national and local airwaves with an anti-Perry message, Doggett can reach Democratic voters well beyond Austin and into the new district he is running in — an area where the Castro name is better known.

“Lloyd Doggett speaking out is good for Democrats generally and it’s good for him because he’s extending outside his media market,” said Angle.

Cook called Doggett’s PR effort a win-win – an opportunity to win free air time by capitalizing on Perry’s headline-dominating campaign launch.

“It’s a low-cost, high-benefit message for him,” said Cook. “What better way to get in the news?”

To some extent, Doggett’s anti-Perry campaign goes far beyond his efforts to reclaim his seat — it reflects lingering tensions following a brawl over public school funding. At issue was a measure that Doggett inserted into a 2010 public education spending bill that would have forced Texas to use its share of the federal money to supplement its current level of education spending. Perry and his GOP allies waged a months-long campaign to combat Doggett’s insert, which was ultimately scrapped.

“Doggett and Perry have a long-standing feud over how federal funds are spent in Texas,” said ex-Texas Democratic Rep. Martin Frost, Doggett’s former colleague. “There’s no love lost.”

Doggett argues that he’s been the target of a Perry vendetta over the last year rooted in the education funding fight. In an interview, he noted that the governor singled him out during his State of the State address earlier this year over school funding, and claimed Perry had engineered the redistricting plan that made his seat unwinnable. He even said he’d seen the governor’s aides passing around maps that were designed to jeopardize his hold on the district.

“My differences are substantial with the governor, and they center over public schools,” Doggett told POLITICO. “There’s a direct relationship between the battle over school funding and redistricting.”

In large part, though, Doggett is simply embracing a confrontational political style that is the hallmark of his career. An unapologetic liberal, Doggett loves to paint himself as a defiant, stick-in-the-eye of Republicans who dominate the conservative state but who not yet managed to oust him from office.

As Frost puts it, “He’s certainly not bashful about doing things.”

“In this little blue oasis in a deep red state, someone needs to speak out on the behalf of Texas populism. I’m not a go-along-to-get-along guy,” said Doggett. “This idea that we need to back down is not an idea that I cotton to.”

If Perry’s camp is worried about Doggett’s attacks, it isn’t letting on. Perry’s spokesman, Mark Miner, dismissed Doggett as “a partisan liberal Democrat,” and Dave Carney, the governor’s longtime political consigliere, was even more dismissive when asked about Doggett.

“Who?” he said.