On Sunday afternoon—just 24 hours after Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his presidential candidacy—an email arrived in my inbox titled, “14 Reasons Why Rick Perry Would Be a Really, Really Bad President.” The article contained in the email took such a harsh tone toward Perry, I assumed, for a brief moment, that a liberal interest group was quickly jumping on the newest entrant in the Republican presidential field. In turns out, however, that the piece was the product of a right-wing website called The American Dream . The author of the article argued that Perry, the supposed savior of conservatives nationwide, is actually a RINO—a Republican in Name Only.

For Texans, this line of argument is nothing new. Indeed, for anyone who’s closely followed Perry’s tenure in Texas—as I have, covering the governor for The Texas Observer since 2003—it’s no secret that some of the state’s conservatives and libertarians dispute his conservative credentials. It’s true that Perry has trafficked heavily in anti-Washington rhetoric, especially in the run-up to his candidacy to become president. But the closer you look at Perry’s record in Texas, the harder it is to discern any coherent ideology at all. When GOP primary voters in other parts of the country examine his signature legislative accomplishments and policy stances, some won’t like what they find.

The first Perry proposal to rile some Texas right-wing activists was the Trans-Texas Corridor—an ambitious plan to cover the state in a series of toll roads . Perry first pitched the idea during his 2002 campaign for governor. The plan would have used government’s eminent domain authority to seize rural farmland not just for multi-lane tolled highways, but also for rail and utility lines. Perry’s office and the Texas Department of Transportation gained legislative approval for the plan in 2003. The state handed the contract for the road planning and building to a Spanish-based company named Cintra.

The backlash from rural Republicans was intense. It was a text-book example of a policy that classic small-government conservatives would hate: Seizing farmland with eminent domain, then handing public money to a foreign company that would built roads Texans would have pay tolls to drive on. Anti-Trans Texas Corridor buttons soon became one of the most popular items among delegates at Republican State Party Conventions in 2004, 2006 and 2008.