Tallia Hart, President and CEO of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce, thinks it improbable that Mr. Perry persuaded any of her city's Fortune 500 companies -- such as Broadcom and Western Digital -- to relocate to Texas, not the least, she told us, because of the infrastructure Orange County provides and the quality of life it offers.

Gov. Perry didn't dispute that in a conversation he had with the Orange County Register earlier this month. However, he said, he wasn't trying to lure, say, Newport Beach's Pacific Life or Santa Ana's Ingram Micro to cowboy country. His aim was to persuade such major corporations that they would do better to expand their operations in Texas than California.

Meanwhile, Mr. Perry urged fast-growing small and medium-size California companies to come check out his state.; Inc. 500 companies like the Newport Beach financial services firm Jackson Hunter Morris & Knight, which posted a three-year growth rate of more than 7,000 percent, or the Irvine advertising and marketing firm 29 Prime, which grew nearly 5,700 percent over three years.

"Our low taxes, sensible regulations and fair legal system are just the thing to get your business moving to Texas," Gov. Perry said in his radio spots that aired on selected stations up and down the state.

California officials were rather dismissive of Mr. Perry's recruiting trip. Gov. Jerry Brown described his Texas counterpart's radio buy -- a mere $24,000 -- as "barely a fart" in state with a half-dozen major media markets.

Yet, it certainly got Mr. Brown's attention. And that California's governor uttered such a caustic remark earned Gov. Perry a jackpot in free media attention, fomenting curiosity, if not necessarily "buzz," within the Golden State's business community.

California continues to offer much to businesses, including the world's 10th-largest economy, the nation's largest consumer market, world-class universities, a labor force among the nation's best educated, dominant industries (among them, motion pictures, wine, computers, Internet, life sciences), abundant venture capital and, of course, the much-desired California lifestyle.

Yet, Gov. Brown, himself, must acknowledge that Sacramento should take steps to enhance the state's business climate; to maintain the competitive edge it has long enjoyed over Texas and other states, like Utah, Virginia and North Carolina, that are now nipping at California's heels.

We do not expect California to place ahead of Texas on listings of the best (and worst) states for business, as ranked by annual surveys produced CEO Magazine, CNBC, Thumbtack.com (in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation) and others. But we do not think it unrealistic for our state to be closer to the top of such rankings than the bottom.

And the place to start, as Gov. Perry kindly suggested, is by lowering the state's business taxes, paring its most onerous regulations, and curbing litigation abuses, which, altogether, make California one of the most expensive states in which to do business.

Gov. Brown must acknowledge that Sacramento should take steps to enhance the state's business climate; to maintain the competitive edge it has long enjoyed over Texas and other states.