The first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States, and the revelation that dozens of others in Texas are now being monitored, is a potential health crisis that gives Republican Gov. Rick Perry another real-time leadership test and a chance to look presidential -- or ineffective -- on a national stage. The once and possibly future White House candidate has seized on similar opportunities before. He deployed 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border this summer after assailing what he called the Obama administration's inaction amid a surge of unaccompanied immigrant children pouring into U.S. territory.... During recent trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, where presidential primary season begins, Perry bragged about dispatching the National Guard to the border in August.
Gov. Rick Perry will make another pilgrimage to the Hawkeye State [on Friday] to raise money for State Representative Patrick Grassley, the grandson of Senator Charles E. Grassley. [...] Mr. Perry has been eager to clear his schedule for nearly everyone running for office in Iowa. In the last year, Mr. Perry has made more than 20 campaign stops there, many for state legislative candidates and county Republican organizations, according to Robert Haus, one of the governor's strategists.
"Amid questions about whether Texas really has been on top of the situation, Texas Governor Rick Perry today left the state and instead went to Iowa to do a fundraiser for a Republican state representative who you haven't heard of, and who probably Rick Perry hadn't heard of before about five minutes ago. It's a person who doesn't necessarily mean anything to Rick Perry other than the fact that Perry would like to run for president, so he has to do fundraisers for state representatives in Iowa in order to try to curry favor with that state's Republican Party. "So, even though the first Ebola case is happening in Texas and at times, the reaction to that case and dealing with that case in a public health level has seemed a little out of control, Governor Perry left Texas today and went to Iowa."