Rick Perry Running for President?

With so many Republicans wringing their hands over the 2012 field, one name that keeps popping up as a possible game changer is Texas Governor Rick Perry.

James Joyner

May 26, 2011

Comments

With so many Republicans wringing their hands over the 2012 field, one name that keeps popping up as a possible game changer is Texas Governor Rick Perry.

The Gold Coast Chronicle, a conservative publication with which I’m not familiar, reports that he’s in.

A few days ago, it looked like the GOP field was set, with the possible exception of Sarah Palin.  Now it looks like another conservative is prepared to jump in the race and he could shake things up a bit.

Informed sources say Texas Governor Rick Perry is going to announce for President in a few days.   If history is an ally, he might already have a leg up, since the man he succeeded as governor left Austin to go to the White House.

Perry’s potential entry into the race is something of a game changer.  Perry is clearly looking at the RINOs who are not getting much traction.

The GOP base is clearly looking for a good conservative candidate that they feel is not only conservative but can reach out, without throwing away their conservative beliefs.

Perry, if he runs impacts several candidates immediately.  With his name recognition he is an immediate threat to Mitt Romney.

Despite Romney’s ability to raise money, it is clear many in the party are looking for an alternative to him.

Politico, however, reports that he’s not.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry will resist the pull to get into the White House race, he said again on Wednesday.

“I can’t say I’m not tempted, but the fact is, this isn’t something that I want to do,” Perry said.

Perry’s comments came during a fly-over tour of the Texas-Mexico border with Fox News host Greta van Susteren.

In the interview, the staunchly anti-Washington governor strongly criticized the border fence currently under construction, saying the federal government is failing to keep people safe.

But instead of running for president, Perry said he had to focus on Texas legislative session and that he hoped “that person will come forward that can win the presidency that we can all get behind.”

That strikes me as stronger than a non-denial denial but weaker than a Shermanesque declaration of non-candidacy.

21 responses to “Rick Perry Running for President?”

wr

May 26, 2011 at 10:41 am

Yeah, let’s all vote for the guy who wanted his state to secede because the Feds were too nice to poor people.
Doug Mataconis

May 26, 2011 at 10:43 am

Dare I say that our history of Texas ~~Governors~~ politicians in the Oval Office over the past 50-odd years argues against this?
James Joyner

May 26, 2011 at 10:44 am

@Doug: Bush 43 is the only Texas governor to go on to the presidency. LBJ was also from Texas, but he was Senate Majority Leader.
1. Doug Mataconis
  
  May 26, 2011 at 10:46 am
  
  I realized that as soon as I hit send. Meant to say “Texas politicians”
Michael

May 26, 2011 at 10:56 am

I hope so. Someone has to save the country from the moron in the White House.
Tsar Nicholas II

May 26, 2011 at 10:59 am

Well, any Republican governor of a large state (whether Texas or otherwise) by definition is a very legitimate presidential candidate.

Perry’s problem is the primary, however, and his major problem therein is money. The lack thereof, to be specific. He’s never been a ruthless fundraiser. Romney would clean his clock in that respect.

He also would be outflanked to the right and to the left. It’s already late in the game. He hasn’t spent the last few months camped out either in Iowa or in New Hampshire. The deranged Palinistas, of course, would reject him out of hand.

Tough to envision him actually taking the plunge. Tougher still to envision him winning the nomination.

In a Nov. general election, however, if somehow he got there, Perry would pose a dire threat to Obama and the Media-Academia-Union cabal, especially if the economy nosedives between now and then, as pretty much all the leading indicators at present are suggesting.
Boyd

May 26, 2011 at 11:02 am

For what it’s worth, from here on the ground in Austin, it sure doesn’t feel like Governor-for-Life Perry (as he is called by a local talk radio personality) will run for President in 2012.
Alex Knapp

May 26, 2011 at 11:09 am

You’d think that advocating treason would make you a non-starter for the Presidency….
Boyd

May 26, 2011 at 11:25 am

Wow, for someone who purports to be level-headed and practical, you’re being an especially wild-eyed fanatic today, Alex.
Abdul

May 26, 2011 at 11:26 am

Oh dear God no!

I was born in Texas and will die in Texas, but please not another Texan in the white house. Rick never pays his taxes, can’t sign his name without an ethics investigation, has destroyed public education in the hopes of privatizing it, etc.

This man cries about fed everything. The only way this guy could live up to his talk is to win the presidency then issue and executive order abolishing the office of president. Trust me, the constitution never stands in his way, he amends it like a child who changes the rules in the middle of a game to win.

As sad as it is, I would prefer Palin as the frontrunner for the GOP. At least she is too dumb to be excessively corrupt. This man is really bright. He could run a non-profit and make millions, scam his own mother, and get a hearty thumbs up for his jargon.

Please America, let him return Texas back to the wild west, but don’t let him screw the whole union.
Alex Knapp

May 26, 2011 at 11:31 am

Boyd,

Wow, for someone who purports to be level-headed and practical, you’re being an especially wild-eyed fanatic today, Alex.

Well, Rick Perry has advocated secession. It was pretty well settled in the 1860s that secession is treason. I think someone running for the office of President of the United States shouldn’t be someone who has advocated secession or treason.

I don’t use the word treason lightly. It’s very over-used in American politics. But in Perry’s case, I think it’s appropriate.

I do get a bit emotional about it, but I was born and raised in Kansas. The cause of the Union is in my blood. 🙂
Boyd

May 26, 2011 at 11:55 am

“Advocate” overstates reality, but we could spend all day chasing that rabbit and neither will convince the other. And while Texas’s oft-proclaimed “right of secession” was debunked by no less than the Supreme Court in 1868, I missed the part where they decided that secession equals treason. If that’s true, a whole lot of folks went unpunished for the crime, which kinda undermines that claim, at least from a practical sense.

And lastly, while I understand that you Yankees might be offended by it, but talking about Texas seceding is about as remarkable as talking about that cold front that brought the temperature down to a mere 95°. It would be a big deal in Kansas; in Texas, it’s just everyday life.

And anyway, Rick ain’t runnin’, and not because he said, “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

Wow, I just reread that, and I’m even more flummoxed that you consider that statement to be “advocating treason,” Alex.
Stormy Dragon

May 26, 2011 at 12:09 pm

Perry’s also typical of the “cut spending, no, not my spending” Republicans that make up the GOP in the middle of the country. Spends all this time railing about how his state doesn’t need washington, but starts balling if they don’t get lots of pork.
anjin-san

May 26, 2011 at 12:10 pm

Well, Rick Perry has advocated secession.

He has to do something to fill the time when he is not begging for federal $$$.
Abdul

May 26, 2011 at 12:12 pm

Texans are about an independent as the kid of millionaires who moves out and gets a job while mommy and daddy supplement his income with a 5 grand a month allowance.

Yes we talk about secession like a cold front, that is the problem, a cold front CAN happen.

You can have any spirit you like, but to deny reality doesn’t make anyone look good. This guy let a dentist write an history book. After the guy said he was no expert.

And yes, secession is treason, or mutiny, or whatever.

Yes, Texas can be on its own. We do have a strong economy and such, but If we were on our own, we wouldn’t be running neck and neck with Alabama and Arkansas, We would be neck and neck with Somalia and The Congo in things like infant death rate, kids in poverty, and education.
Abdul

May 26, 2011 at 12:18 pm

The last big education funding from Washington had a rider in it that specifically said, Texas has conditions no other state has. There is a good reason for that. He used the money for his “Rainy Day” fund, more accurately known as a campaign fund. He cried about that. He cried about being “forced” to take federal dollars. This guy is a jack-legged hypocrite. Even now with one of the biggest budget crises in History fr our state he was reluctant to use the fund for education that improperly used education funds help bolster.
Abdul

May 26, 2011 at 12:22 pm

If I weren’t from Texas my punctuation might be better.
Talmadge East

May 26, 2011 at 1:37 pm

@Alex: The charge that secession is treason, looked @ through the prism of our founding and the history of the states, is ridiculous to me. Be glad that we are still a country, and maybe it was a flaw in the original plan, but when writing the Constitution the founders rejected a “perpetual union.”
A Texan

May 27, 2011 at 11:54 am

As for treason…..are these words familiar to anyone?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
Abdul

May 27, 2011 at 1:46 pm

Yeah, that was a letter to a king. They finally ended by establishing a federal government because the confederacy had to be abolished. If you want to abolish the federal system now there would have to be another constitutional convention and, I believe, a super majority of states would have to agree to a new constitution. If Texas left, it would be overrun by Mexico probably thus giving instability to our neighbors. And our reserved power to leave is not real. It is the power to divide into five states that would still be part of the US. There could be a north —- state,, south, central, west, and east. We agreed to this for our our happiness and safety many years ago.

And that letter was written for several reason, one big one being expediency. It would take a couple months to get a bill to England and a couple back, if the king chose to approve. The tyranny was the thought of one king having so much power, not a government of elected officials.

This template was designed by John Locke. We used it against the king, but then Texas used it to secede before. We lost and agreed to be in the part of the US. If Texas wants to declare war again, go for it, but just picking up and leaving is not an option.
Abdul

May 27, 2011 at 1:48 pm

If we go against the US, than that is treason.