With this week’s release of Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington Rick Perry officially transitions from campaigning for his fourth term as Texas governor into positioning himself as a player on the national political landscape. It is popular these days to game out Perry’s intentions in releasing the book and going on a national tour so quickly after he was reelected.

Between his popularity among the tea party and his charming manner paired with his picturesque figure that matches the stereotypical image of a politician — he is Governor Goodhair, as the late Molly Ivins dubbed him — many have assumed he hopes to gain the Republican 2012 presidential nomination, or the vice-presidential slot, to challenge Barack Obama.

A close read of Fed Up! reveals an entirely different, and far more subtle goal.  Based on the content of his anti-government tirade, the governor appears sincere in insisting he doesn’t seek the presidency, as a number of bold statements in the book would make it challenging for him to later wage a campaign for higher office. Instead the book positions Perry to assume a different kind of national role: pundit defending federalism, a role perfectly suited to his return to chairing the Republican Governors Association later this week.

The theme of federalism runs throughout all sections of Fed Up!. If Perry’s ideology had to be boiled down to a single statement, it would be some variation of the argument that the federal government holds too much power, and, instead, government is best run the closer it operates to the people. As the governor of a large state, that is not too shocking of a position; politics are provincial, with every player wanting to carve out the most power for whatever position they hold. But Perry’s take seems sincere, and while he may not seek higher office, the book allows him to assume a role as the most prominent defender of state governments’ rights to sovereignty in the face of congressional mandates — from either party.

Perry defends the U.S. government’s spending on defense measures and encourages them to take a more active role in securing the border to prevent future illegal immigration, but beyond that the governor is opposed to pretty much any federal expenditure.

Perry vehemently attacks the politically sacred social programs of Social Security and Medicare. His disgust for the New Deal permeates the book. He terms Social Security a Ponzi scheme, and vehemently denounces the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His historical take begins by attacking the progressive era and the 16th Amendment which cemented the federal government’s ability to levy income taxes. He argues that this power allowed FDR to exploit the Great Depression to increase the scope of federal power at the expense of federalism.

“An arrogant President Roosevelt and an emboldened Congress saw the opportunity to use a crisis to expand Washington’s influence, and the Supreme Court let them do it by abdicating its role as the protector of constitutional federalism,” Perry writes. “This era represents the second big step in the march of socialism and was the key to releasing the remaining constraints on the national government’s power grab in American history … FDR tried to change the way that citizens interacted with their government.”

Fox News and conservative talk radio may trade in this reading of political history, but it is rare rhetoric from a politician who has to seek the votes from a large electorate. After the welfare reforms during the Bill Clinton administration, the Republican Party has been loath to touch any of the other social support systems; one of the primary complaints levied against the Pres. Barack Obama’s health care reform by Republican candidates during the midterm elections was that it shifted funds away from Medicare. The only major reform the Republican Party has implemented to the social safety net during the past decade has actually been to expand the deficit through instituting the prescription drug benefits in Medicare Part D. As younger votes continue to break heavily for Democrats, the GOP is increasingly beholden to elderly voters who revere these benefit programs.

Perry saves perhaps his harshest critiques for the ‘statist’ Democrats who he believes seek to expand the powers of the national government at every available opportunity. But Perry’s own party is not sparred in his angry assessment of Washington.

“Who, pray tell, is yelling ‘Stop’ today?” Perry asks. “It sure isn’t Washington Republicans. Now don’t misunderstand me — these days, I believe there is generally no question about which party to support. I am a proud, albeit frustrated, Republican. I am frustrated because Republicans have so often been been part of the problem in Washington, rather than standing on principle to give voice to the American people.” Perry continues on later in this same section of the book, assailing the national party for supporting No Child Left Behind, earmarks, Medicare Part D, TARP and other bailouts in response to the Great Recession.

In Fed Up!, Perry focuses on championing local and state control of government, steering clear of contentious social issues that define some Republican ideologues. Perry may think it is absurd for another state to allow gay marriage, for example, but he doesn’t censure it as long as the state is the one making the decision and that policy is not forced on Texas.

“When the federal government oversteps its authority, states should tell Washington that they will not be complicit in enforcing laws with which they do not agree,” Perry writes. “Again, the best example is an issue I don’t even agree with — the partial legalization of marijuana. Californians clearly want some level of legalized marijuana, be it for medicinal use or otherwise. The federal government is telling them they cannot. But states are not bound to enforce federal law.”

That’s not to say that Perry’s live-and-let-live philosophy is fully coherent. In his assessments of Supreme Court rulings, Perry ignores his federalist ideals to support traditionally conservative views. Early in the book, Perry tackles one of the first issues that liberals will use to challenge federalist arguments: the South’s historical use of states’ rights rhetoric to resist the civil rights movement. Perry argues that southern segregationists abused the language of federalism to enforce a unconstitutional disruption of civil rights, and that the federal governments interjection in these matters was solely the final realization of constitutional amendments passed in the wake of the Civil War.

“It is important to note that, for all the bluster leading up to and during the civil rights movement by some about states’ rights, it was the realization of the purpose and intent of those constitutional amendments — a process that both respected federalism and the role of the federal government to use explicit constitutional authority to protect fundamental individual rights — that lead to equal rights for all,” Perry writes. “And it is also important that those of us who are committed to liberty through federalism not be held hostage because some people were misguided or evil in their perpetuation of the scourge of racism in the name of states’ rights.”

Perry uses the same logic to selectively support the Supreme Court’s rulings overturning local legislation that restricts gun rights in Chicago and Washington, D.C., while also making a dire prediction that “gay marriage will soon be the policy of the United States, irrespective of federalism…because judges will declare it so.” In Perry’s reading, judicial federalism can be positive, just as long as it adheres to his own ideology.

In a work that sticks fairly close to a political philosophy throughout, the chapter on courts lapses into blatant political grandstanding. “The current Court is considered by some a conservative court. I do not accept that. What we really have are four justices who believe in the Constitution (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito), four justices who are committed to making policy from the bench regardless of the Constitution (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan), and one justice who wakes up each day basking in the glow of his power to swing the Court (Kennedy),” Perry writes.

Fed Up! has been Perry’s ticket onto the national stage, but the 2012 presidential election seems far from his immediate concern. No, it is the newly elected Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives that is likely his primary audience — and he is speaking as if he’s already secured another term as the head of the Republican Governors Association.

After an era of government by Republicans during the early part of the 2000s that only saw the expansion of power in Washington, Fed Up! is a warning to the GOP to avoid straying from its rhetoric of federalism again. Perry met with presumptive House Speaker-elect John Boehner when he visited Washington as part of his book tour, and the Texas governor likely used the discussion to remind the Republican leader that the support of the party’s governors relies on enhancing states’ rights. Though Perry may not wage a 2012 campaign himself, with his strong support from the tea party movement, he has positioned himself as a potential major outside voice to encourage potential candidates to push federalism as a central platform for the party.

(Photo: Flickr Creative Commons/sj_sanders, Image by: Matt Mahurin)