Perry, Running Under Indictment

Rebecca Berg writes at RealClearPolitics:

Rick Perry is bringing some baggage with him on the campaign trail.

The former Texas governor, who will announce his second bid for president Thursday at an airport in Addison, Texas, near Dallas, still faces criminal charges stemming from an indictment last year, and the legal proceedings could dog Perry for months to come.

Perry is charged with abusing his power as governor when he used a veto threat to try to force an official to resign. When a judge in January refused to dismiss the case, Perry’s legal team appealed.

Now, the ongoing legal drama threatens to cast a pall on Perry’s campaign launch and distract from his candidacy.

Jonathan Tilove writes:

But the bad news for Perry is that the field is large and fluid and his special virtues – leadership skills, executive experience and likabilty, which could make him broadly acceptable – aren’t necessarily unique. What is unique to him, not just in this field but it seems in the annals of American history, is that he is the first major candidate for president running for president while under indictment.

He and his team have done a very good job of presenting that fact in its best light, and making it almost an afterthought, if that, in most of what is now written about Perry. But, the fact remains that he is under indictment back in Austin, with no resolution in sight.