Being charged with a crime is rarely good news for any public figure, but it looks like Texas Governor Rick Perry will be the exception that proves the rule.

Not only will his presidential aspirations survive the criminal case launched against him last last week, the governor’s prosecution will improve his standing among Iowa Republicans, for three reasons.

1. Perry won’t be convicted.

A criminal conviction resulting in fines or imprisonment would put a damper on anyone’s presidential campaign, but Perry doesn’t have to worry.

I don’t need to belabor this point. Threatening to veto funding in order to pressure an elected official to resign is an abuse of power. Calling such actions criminal is a stretch, though. The law he is accused of violating may not even be constitutional. I doubt any jury will convict Perry of a felony, when plenty of Democrats had the same reaction to the news that I did. All the governor’s attorney needs to do at trial is echo liberal law professor and defense attorney Alan Dershowitz:

“This is another example of the criminalization of party differences,” said Dershowitz, a prominent scholar on United States constitutional law and criminal law who writes the “Legally Speaking” column for Newsmax. “This idea of an indictment is an extremely dangerous trend in America, whether directed at [former House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay or [former President] Bill Clinton.”

Further, Dershowitz said, such indictments are something that’s done in totalitarian countries and should not be done in the United States.

In such countries, “if you don’t like them, you indict,” Dershowitz said. “In America, you vote against them…this should be up to the voters. There is no room in America for abuse of office charges, and this has to stop once and for all. This is a serious problem.”

And indicting a politician, rather than fighting back through a ballot box, “is so un-American.”

It’s ironic that conservatives who cheered Bill Clinton’s impeachment (a lame excuse for a political vendetta if there ever was one) now decry the criminalization of politics with respect to Rick Perry, but don’t go looking for coherence from the Republican base.

2. Conservatives like GOP governors to strong-arm political opponents.

Have you heard any Iowa Republican criticize Governor Terry Branstad’s heavy-handed efforts to get rid of Chris Godfrey more than four years before the end of Godfrey’s fixed term as Iowa Workers Compensation Commissioner? Neither have I.

The criminal case against Perry stems from his attempt to force out the district attorney of Travis County. In terms of political culture, Travis County is as distinct from the rest of the Texas as “the People’s Republican of Johnson County” is from the rest of Iowa. Republicans here will sympathize with Perry’s goal. To them, it’s self-evident that District Attorney Rosemary Lemberg should have resigned after a drunk driving arrest.

Never mind that the same Republicans didn’t urge State Representative Erik Helland to resign after an OWI arrest in 2010. (Not long after that incident, Helland’s colleagues elected him majority whip.) Likewise, Iowa Republicans didn’t call for GOP State Representative Greg Forristall to step down when he was arrested for drunk driving in 2011. They didn’t object when Governor Terry Branstad reappointed Jeff Lamberti to chair one of the most powerful state commissions less than a year after Lamberti’s OWI arrest. Don’t go looking for coherence from the Republican base.

3. Crucially, the indictment came after Perry had started paying his dues in Iowa this election cycle.

Timing counts for a lot in politics. Perry started his 2012 presidential campaign late, blowing off countless GOP forums and fundraisers around Iowa and even the state party’s heralded scam “straw poll.”

He’s not making the same mistake twice. Perry has visited Iowa four times since last November. He’s raised money for county parties as well as for Branstad. He headlined campaign events for Matt Whitaker even after it became clear Joni Ernst had the U.S. Senate nomination locked up. Most recently, while in Iowa for the state fair and the Family Leadership Summit, Perry made time to raise money for Congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks, three county GOP committees, and three candidates in battleground Iowa Senate districts: Crystal Bruntz (SD-15), Mike Moore (SD-39), and Brian Schmidt (SD-49). Those races could determine control of the Iowa Senate for the next two years.

Few Iowa Republicans are committing to a 2016 presidential candidate this early, but Perry has built up a lot of goodwill through these visits. If he hadn’t set foot in Iowa since 2012, by the time he got back here, some people might think he’s only using retail politics to rehabilitate his image after a criminal indictment.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Even Perry’s mugshot doesn’t look bad. He looks like he’s enjoying the experience.