Back in 1944, an advertising executive named John Randolph put together a booklet called “Texas Brags.” It was an offshoot of an ad campaign for Jax beer, and it contained some fun facts about my home state, including “If all the hogs in Texas were one big hog, he could dig the Panama Canal with three roots and a grunt.” Or “The King Ranch is so big that there is a month’s difference in seasons between the northern and southern parts.” And “Son, it is very rude to ask a man where he is from. If he is from Texas, you will find out, and if he’s not, don’t embarrass him.”

In its first year, “Texas Brags” sold 100,000 copies, and by 1972, when Randolph died, sales reached close to one million. There’s no mystery as to why it did so well — Texans love Texas in a way that can border on the pathological. That’s not just the stuff of moth-eaten stereotype, either. (Remember the George W. Bush presidency?) Whether the defining characteristics of the swaggering Texan — thick accent, folksy anti-intellectualism, pugilistic posture — are rooted in deep insecurity or confounding confidence or both, they tend to grate on outsiders who, for centuries, took us for boors and often got beat in the process, leading to even more regional resentment.

Our three-term governor, Rick Perry, comes straight out of this tradition, far more so than Bush. “I went to Texas A&M; he went to Yale” is the way Perry described the difference between himself and the former president, and he wasn’t being self-deprecating. And of course, now that he’s running for president, Perry, in his jocular, fratty way, is taking credit for virtually every good thing that has happened in Texas since Independence.

His shtick, however, is wearing thin around here. Typically, we close ranks when faced with criticism from outsiders. Being from Texas today is not unlike being a member of an ethnic minority. We can argue among ourselves, but criticism from the outside provokes a storm of defensiveness. Even liberal Texans took umbrage, for instance, when Al Gore portrayed the state as a polluted hellhole.