And it’s safe to assume that both times Perry was not offering sincere policy proposals, just running his mouth: Texas is not authorized to secede, and the idea that Texans would consider doing so is ridiculous; and whatever your feelings about quantitative easing, it’s obviously not “almost treasonous.” In general, it seems that campaign gaffes are most costly when they seem to reveal something noxious or corroborate something that voters already dislike about a candidate. Perry’s trash-talking confirms that he’s aggressive, but Republican voters don’t particularly dislike that in a candidate. Of course, it’s thuggish to suggest that the Federal Reserve Chairman should be mistreated, but Perry knew that his remarks were unlikely to count against him. Liberals predictably wringed their hands, but the only effect has been to give Perry an opportunity to cite their outrage over his secession comments as a punch line at conservative rallies.

The particular facility Perry shows when it comes to the deployment of belligerent rhetoric is reflective of Texan political culture, which tends to be more colorful and no-holds-barred than elsewhere in the country. Texans across the political spectrum expect, and accept, a streak of aggression in their political leaders. When President Bush was going around talking about smoking Osama bin Laden out of his hole, liberals elsewhere in the country may have been outraged at the breach of diplomatic protocol, but some Texan Democrats were instinctively on board. “I am such a Texan that…it was ‘Sign me up for the posse, sheriff’ time for me,” wrote the great liberal journalist Molly Ivins at the time. “It never occurred to me that was inappropriate language. When others pointed it out, I, like Bush, promptly became defensive.”

None of this is to say Perry has an entirely sterling record as a debater. Political debates in Texas, as in most states, are seldom heavily scrutinized, but even so, Perry has been criticized for lackluster performance at times, and, on occasion, for not even bothering to show up. His showing in the 2010 Republican primary debate, facing Kay Bailey Hutchison, the state’s senior senator, and Debra Medina, a libertarian who launched an attention-getting challenge from the right, went particularly poorly. Under questioning from his rivals, the moderator, and the audience, he bristled and deflected. His manner suggested that he had blown off debate prep, and was coasting on the fact that neither Hutchison nor Medina was likely to beat him.

Similarly, during that campaign, Perry refused to have the traditional meetings with newspaper editorial boards. He did sit for several interviews, and occasionally seemed underprepared. One clip that has been making the rounds is an exchange between the governor and Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune on the subject of Texas’s abstinence-only sex education. Smith, an excellent interviewer and astute Perry watcher, asks the governor why Texas sticks with the program when, given that the state has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the nation, it doesn’t seem to be working. “Abstinence works,” says Perry. The audience laughs. Smith presses: The point of the question, he says, is that abstinence-only isn’t working. “It works,” says Perry, looking concerned and befuddled. “Maybe it’s the way that it’s being taught, or the way that it’s being applied out there.”