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Here with us now, columnist gail collins. she is out with a new book, "as texas goes: how the lone star state hijacked the american agenda." i want to start with another "new york times" piece, though, the message from wisconsin it's called, and it goes over the results of the recall election. it says mr. walker's campaign raised seven times as much money as mr. barrett's, much of it in six-figure checks from some of the same business interests. the tactics worked in wisconsin, and in several other states. labor, so long in decline in the private sector, is also losing its clout in states and ...

Produce these college graduates. they are coming in from illinois or new york or other places. and then texas tells the rest of the country, it's very important to have incredibly low tax rates. which we're sort of paying for because we are sending them our college graduates. i'm not saying that's a bad idea. i'm saying that when you look at the country as a whole, rather than as these little microcosms, you make different judgments about what it's a good plan to do. if you have texas not spending any money on family planning, and then 60% of all the deliveries and births are under medicaid be...

For the rest of us. >> what is it about texas? because there are california and new york who are essentially count countries unto themselves as well as far as population and economy. but what is it about texas? >> well, i grew up in ohio. and i think people in ohio are fond of ohio. but you don't run around in a t-shirt saying don't mess with ohio. you don't salute the ohio state flag in the morning when you go to school. >> where does that come from? >> it's partly that they -- well, they were once an independent country, and they were very -- they are very, very proud of the fact they were o...

Minnesota. it's just a different thing. >> you look at the economic track record in texas. the job growth numbers are stunning. and it's not just in oil and gas. it's across the board. it's tech. i was recently flying out of austin, texas, a few months ago and i opened up the paper, and ebay or pay pal was announcing a facility in texas. thousands of jobs. where these days do you read anything in the press about a company opening up a facility that will create thousands of jobs in the united states? a lot of these companies are going from silicon valley to austin. now, austin is not the texas ...

Loan debacle in the '80s, that was based on a texas plan. you can't say that they were in charge of the reregulation, but certainly phil graham was right up front. no child left behind. all of our federal policies on education, all come from george w. bush's experiences in texas, running texas. energy, the environment. all of the land wars in my lifetime are under texas presidents. they have been running everything. why are they so unhappy? and it sort of all goes back to that state's rights thing. so i sort of looked at texas and tried to figure out if you took texas all by itself and just le...