It’s fascinating what a successful re-election campaign can do for a public official who decides to walk straight into the belly of the political beast.

President Obama ventured to Texas today to talk about jobs and his ideas for creating more of them. Texas, of course, isn’t exactly Obama Country. He carried 41 percent of the vote here in 2012 compared to Mitt Romney’s 57 percent total.

What’s more, the president has been pilloried at every opportunity by one of the individuals who greeted him warmly today in Austin: Gov. Rick Perry.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/05/09/obama-perry-visit/

But the president came, released from the bonds of having to campaign ever again for elected office. Think about that for a moment. During the 2012 campaign, Obama ventured into Texas only to attend private fundraisers that generated a lot of money for him. We saw no public stump speeches from him; no plant-gate handshaking; no baby-kissing at the State Fair in Dallas.

Now that his final election is behind him, Obama has come to Texas to speak about jobs.

And I’m glad to see the Republican governor there to greet him. They made nice in public, which is a good thing given that the president serves all the people of this country, not just those who voted for him.

But oh man, I would love to be a fly on the wall in a room where President Obama and Gov. Perry can speak candidly to each other. In diplomatic parlance, I’m quite certain their discussions would be “frank.”