Joel Kotkin on the "Texas Miracle"; Friedman on Getting the Wrong People to do the Right Thing

From his Forbes column, Joel Kotkin takes a look at what has made Texas such a jobs generating success and what role current Gov. Rick Perry has played.  The answer,

"Most of the credit for Texas’ success lies primarily in the state’s economic culture.  Rice University urban scholar Michael Emerson notes that Texas’ pro-business tilt started well before Perry, and is not restricted to the GOP.  Many of the state’s most prominent Democrats—including the man Perry beat for governor last year, former Houston Mayor  Bill White—have been strong advocates of economic growth and across-the-board energy development."

This reminds me of a quote from Milton Friedman that Mark Steyn reprints in his book After America,

"I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people.  The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.  Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office."

Here is a link to the video of Friedman making the same point.