Mr. McHale, a Perry spokesman said after the initial donation, ?understands Governor Perry?s leadership has made Texas a good place to do business.?
Including, it turned out, for Mr. McHale?s business interests and partners. In May 2010 an economic development fund administered by the governor?s office handed $3 million to G-Con, a pharmaceutical start-up that Mr. McHale helped get off the ground. At least two other executives with connections to the firm had also given Mr. Perry tens of thousands of dollars.
Mr. Perry leapt into the Republican presidential primary this month preceded by his reputation as a thoroughbred fund-raiser. But a review of Mr. Perry?s years in office reveals that one of his most potent fund-raising tools is the very government he heads.
Over three terms in office, Mr. Perry?s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry?s ascent.
?Texas politics does have this amazing pay-to-play culture,? said Harold Cook, a Democratic political consultant.
Mark Miner, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, said there was no connection between Mr. McHale?s contributions and the grant to G-Con. He said that the purpose of the state money was to create jobs and that it was appropriate for Mr. Perry to appoint people who support his vision and policies to state oversight posts.
?These issues have been brought up in previous elections to no avail,? Mr. Miner said.
Mr. Perry is not the first governor to have taken contributions from contractors or appointees to state commissions and boards, which oversee many of the agencies that in other states are controlled directly by the governor.
But because he has been in office more than a decade, he has had greater opportunity than any of his predecessors to stock the government with loyalists ? he has appointed roughly 4,000 people to state posts ? while enacting policies that have benefited allies and contributors.
And Mr. Perry has been much more aggressive than any past governor in soliciting money from them. According to a study last year by Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog organization, Mr. Perry has raised at least $17 million from more than 900 appointees or their spouses, roughly one dollar out of every five that he has raised as governor.
Among the state boards that have generated the most campaign contributions for Mr. Perry, the study found, were the State Parks and Wildlife Commission and the board of regents of Texas A&M, Mr. Perry?s alma mater. Those appointees have donated more than $4 million to his campaigns for governor.
?I know that at least some of the people who were initially approached to be regents have been later turned down because they didn?t pass what I would call a loyalty test,? said Jon L. Hagler, a prominent A&M alumnus and a major donor to the university.
Mr. Perry has also drawn scrutiny for two of his signature economic development efforts, the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The enterprise fund, which is intended to be a deal-closing tool for the state as it competes for jobs, has dispensed $435 million in grants to businesses since 2003. The technology fund, which has doled out nearly $200 million to companies since 2005, has a similar job creation mandate.
More than a quarter of the companies that have received grants from the enterprise fund in the most recent fiscal year, or their chief executives, made contributions to either Mr. Perry?s campaign dating back to 2001 or to the Republican Governors Association since 2008, when Mr. Perry became its chairman, according to an analysis by The New York Times.