I live in Texas, and I can tell you from experience that Perry is not half the conservative that Cruz is. So I will respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement.
LOL I'm sure you're correct. But he has zero Executive experience, whereas running one of the biggest states in the union for longer than anybody else and being a success at it is going to make Perry more attractive to a bigger percentage of the electorate. You cannot be elected on the conservative base alone.