Ramesh points out that Gov. Rick Perry’s views on federalism have been evolving at high speed. We can debate whether or not Perry’s flip-flops are more egregious than Mitt Romney’s as a matter of substance, but my sense is that Perry’s flip-flops will prove far less politically consequential than Romney’s. Perry looks and more to the point sounds like a reliable conservative, and so I suspect that his record will be subject to less intense scrutiny than Romney’s, who looks and sounds like a member of the “eastern establishment,” which continues to be the conservative bete noire many decades after Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. This has given Perry running room for unorthodox stances in the past, though it remains to be seen if this will continue to be the case.