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...“We’ll make that decision on Saturday,” [Perry] said on ABC’s This Week. “It’s our intention to win SouthCarolina and go forward from there. But to try to plan out your campaign months in advance, I think is a little bit of a stretch.” The governor, who trailed in the Iowa caucuses and in the NewHampshire primary, said Sunday that his service in the AirForce will play well with the Palmetto State’s large veterans population. He has also tried to gain votes by attacking front-runner MittRomney as a “vulture” capitalist, a phrase that conservative commentators say sounds like an attack on...

Rick Perry says he's going on to campaign in Florida's Jan. 31 Republican presidential primary - no matter how he fares in South Carolina.

Just heard from a tweet, someone elses tweet of course.

After a disappointing fifth-place finish in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, Texas Governor Rick Perry said he is going home to Texas to assess "whether there is a path forward for myself in this race." "With the voters' decision tonight in Iowa, I've decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race," Perry told supporters at the end of the night. The candidate, once considered a frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination, earned just 10 percent on Tuesday's contest with more

In a campaign speech late Tuesday night, Governor Rick Perry stated that he is "returning to Texas" to reassess whether he is going to continue running for President. The speech contained several emotional moments, in particular two moments. The first was when he read a letter from an adoring supporter who called him a "great man." The letter described a conversation that Mr. Perry had had with a soldier and how his supporter looked on in awe as he watched Governor Perry call the veteran his "Christian brother." The second was when Perry announced that he would be returning to...

Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, appears doomed to a fifth-place finish in Iowa. Unless he drops out, that would make South Carolina his last stand against Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney. The problem is that he might not receive an invitation to an upcoming South Carolina debate (given the debate criteria). Candidates can qualify to participate in the CNN/Southern Republican Leadership Conference debate January 19th (two days before the South Carolina primary) in one of four ways. First and second, they can place in the top four in either Iowa or New Hampshire. Third and fourth, they can qualify by averaging seven...

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – Walk into this West Des Moines hotel, and you’ll easily encounter volunteers in Rick Perry fleeces or staffers wearing official Rick Perry badges. The Perry campaign has set up shop here just days before the Iowa caucuses while nearly two thousand volunteers fan out across the state to promote the Texas governor with an expansive ground game as the campaign hopes he’ll earn a top three spot in the caucuses Tuesday. A source close to the Perry campaign confirmed to ABC News they have signed up 1500 precinct leaders across Iowa. At each of the...

With a revamped message and a significant TV presence here, Rick Perry is hoping to revive his disappointing presidential campaign with a surprise finish Tuesday. But even as they hold out hope that Perry can find a way back into contention, some of his advisers have begun laying the groundwork to explain how the Texas governor bombed so dramatically in a race that he seemed to control for a brief period upon his entry in August. Their explanations for the nosedive come against the backdrop of a campaign riven by an intense, behind-the-scenes power struggle that took place largely between...

RelatedCRESTON, Iowa — Rick Perry began his final push in the Iowa Republican caucuses Tuesday by sharpening his claim to be the sort of leader the country badly needs, and which his rivals decidedly are not. “You need to ask yourself: If we replace the Democrat insider with a Republican insider, is that going to change Washington, D.C.? No, it’s not,” he told 150 or so Iowans crammed into a coffee shop a week ahead of caucuses likely to winnow the presidential field. “I will go to Washington to be an anti-establishment outsider.” At one stop after another, he jabbed...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry failed to submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, state GOP officials said Friday evening. Perry’s campaign told state election officials it had submitted 11,911 signatures, but a Virginia Republican familiar with the situation said that the Texas governor did not submit the required 10,000. Earlier Friday, the Republican Party of Virginia certified former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) to appear in the March ballot. Four candidates — Romney, Perry, Paul and former House speaker Newt Gingrich — turned in thousands of signatures by the deadline. State...

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today released the following statement regarding the death of Kim Jong Il: “The death of vicious dictator Kim Jong Il provides some cause for hope but does not automatically end the reign of inhumane tyranny he and his father constructed. Twenty-three million people still live under North Korea’s isolationist, inhumane and tyrannical policies. North Korea remains a nuclear power, and there is a great threat that those weapons might fall into the wrong hands if civil war breaks out. “At the same time, Kim Jong Il’s death is an opportunity to reunify the peninsula if...

Gov. Rick Perry began his 42-city bus tour on a rather populist note Wednesday, saying a diagram of the country’s problems would be a straight line between Washington, D.C. and Wall Street. Perry has been struggling in the polls for months but hopes a tour of Iowa’s small towns in the three weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 can lift him back to the front of the pack. “I hope some of you are taking a second look,” Perry said. Perry is trying to sell himself as the true Washington outsider in the Republican race, and...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said today that using foreign aid to combat human rights abuses against homosexuals in foreign countries is “not in America’s interests” and attacked President Obama’s decision to require U.S. agencies operating abroad to promote equal rights for gays as part of the administration’s “war on traditional American values.” “Just when you thought Barack Obama couldn’t get any more out of touch with America’s values, AP reports his administration wants to make foreign aid decisions based on gay rights. This administration’s war on traditional American values must stop,” Perry said in the statement. “Promoting special rights for...

November 29, 2011Sneak Peek: Gov. Rick Perry ‘On the Record’ Tonight! by Greta Van Susteren Don’t miss our wide-ranging interview with GOP presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry on tonight’s ON THE RECORD at 10 ET! For now, here is a sneak preview...

..The Texas governor has faced criticism from Republican rivals like Mitt Romney for being "soft" on illegal immigrants, because those who live in Texas can attend state universities at the same cost as other Texas residents. Perry, who made the remarks while campaigning in New Hampshire with a controversial Arizona sheriff, said that if elected he would immediately order the deportation of any illegal immigrant detained in the United States. "My policy will be to detain and deport every illegal alien who is apprehended in this country," Perry said. "And we'll do it with an expedited hearing process so that...

AMHERST - Winning the endorsement of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry echoed his stance on illegal immigration today in the Granite State, saying he would support a federal law to "detain and deport every illegal alien that we apprehend." During a morning campaign stop at Joey’s Diner, the presidential candidate said he would end the current catch-and-release policy that cuts loose nonviolent illegal immigrants. Calling the policy "horrific," Perry said the future of America depends on the security of its borders. If elected, Perry said that one year after his inauguration the border with Mexico...

November 28, 2011 Get ready for a Perry comeback By Bryan Fischer Newt is the current flavor of the month in the GOP race for the presidential nomination, and grabbed a coup in New Hampshire with the endorsement of the Union-Leader. However, Newt has enough baggage with enough rocks in it to drag him below surface again. His amnesty stance on immigration puts him to the left of Perry on that issue, and we now know he took $1.8 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac right when they were dragging the housing industry to the bottom of the sea....

Perry is nearly perfect with regards to his gun record.

Rick Perry 1992 RNC Convention Speech as Texas Ag Commissioner.

"Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who calls himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” will endorse Texas Gov. Rick Perry next week, a source with knowledge of the endorsement told ABC News.".......

Do not believe the haters and the left-leaning media. Rick Perry has the strength, conviction, and solid record to turn America around. It is time. Time for a REAL change.

It’s been a long, hard road for Rick Perry the last few months, what with his unforgettable “oops” moment, that strange speech in New Hampshire, the birtherism interlude, the Mormon “cult” distraction and — well, you get the idea. But with the constant struggles on the campaign trail, Perry has been able to count on a solid phalanx of support from Texas Republicans. Wait? He hasn’t? Uh, oh. By the latest count, Perry has won endorsements from only eight of his home state’s 23 Republican House members and neither of the state’s two senators.

COLLEGE STATION, Tex. — Rick Perry arrived on the campus of Texas A&M University in the tumultuous fall of 1968, cut his hair short, regulation military style, and donned a uniform. College students across America were rising up against the Vietnam War, but Mr. Perry, a member of the Corps of Cadets here, would not be among them. “There will be no Columbia, no Berkeley here,” the university president, Earl Rudder, declared that fall. When a small band of antiwar protesters took to the steps of the Memorial Student Center, a building ... “I don’t want to use the word...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry unveiled a sweeping economic agenda Monday highlighted by a plan to level a voluntary 20 percent “flat tax” on all taxpayers who will accept it in place of what they’re paying now.

The Iowa caucuses are now just 72 days away. Once Iowans vote on Jan. 3, the 2012 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination ceases to be about debates and gaffes and spin, and begins to be about actual results. This week’s uproar over Herman Cain’s CNN interview with Piers Morgan will likely be a distant and irrelevant memory by Jan. 3. Despite Cain’s rhetorical difficulty in consistently articulating a pro-life position, his bona fides on the issue have long been established, as demonstrated in 2006 when he led a $1 million effort to encourage black voters to vote pro-life. What...

Thursday, October 20, 2011 Reflecting national trends, businessman Herman Cain has now jumped to the front of the Republican pack in Iowa. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Iowa caucus-goers shows that Cain is in front with 28% followed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at 21%. Congressman Ron Paul is a distant third at 10% followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 9%, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann at 8%, and Texas Governor Rick Perry at 7%. The sixth place finish for Perry is a sharp decline from early September when Perry was the frontrunner both nationally and...

Last month, Insider Advantage had him leading Romney in the state 29/20. A month later, “He now barely has a heartbeat.” When I saw Perry’s topline number of three percent, I figured the “Ponzi scheme” talk must have sent Florida’s seniors running screaming into the night. Not so. He’s actually doing (marginally) worse with other age demographics in this poll, and in the last poll he did reasonably well with the 65+ crowd, finishing second to Romney in that group with almost 23 percent. That poll was taken on September 13, which was almost a week after Romney started attacking...

Las Vegas, Nevada— One day before a CNN Western Republican presidential debate, a new national survey indicates that Mitt Romney and Herman Cain are essentially tied for the lead in the race for the GOP nomination, with Rick Perry dropping to a distant third. .....According to the poll [CNN/ORC International Poll], only one third of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they will definitely support the candidate they are currently backing, with two thirds saying they may change their minds. "With only 33% of all Republicans saying that their minds are made up, it's far too early...

Romney has had a big boost from the Republican establishment, which decided a while back he's the serious candidate with a chance of beating President Obama. The establishment also decided that upending Texas Gov. Rick Perry's chances is the best way to ensure a Romney victory, since none of the other candidates in the race are very serious and the establishment utterly failed in coaxing NJ Gov. Chris Christie into the race. Cain and Romney are also buddies. Cain endorsed Romney last time around and Romney finds various ways to praise Cain, even going so far as telling a NH...

Gov. Rick Perry has released a jobs plan. Or is it an energy plan? Or it is an EPA-reform plan? Or is it a trade-deficit plan? The plan is a bit of each, and it is a very good one. Governor Perry, under whom Texas enjoyed the strongest job-creation record of any large U.S. state, proposes to open up oil and gas production in areas in which American producers are either shut out or heavily restricted: the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida coast, and Alaska, among others. Perry’s plan also entails the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and the...

POLITICO's Ken Vogel passes along an email sent by Perry contributor Norman Adams that contained a separate email from Steve Hotze, also a Perry bundler based in Texas. Both emails make donor solicitations that underscore Perry's position helping to kill a bill similar to the Arizona immigration legislation, for instance. The upshot is that these are not necessarily positions that either primary and caucus voters know about Perry, or that will sit well with them. As I noted in another post, it's not clear that immigration is the driver of voter interests in presidential primaries that some believe it to...

Speaking to hundreds of Granite State voters at a private reception, the Texas governor was asked whether he supported a fence along the Mexican border. "No, I don't support a fence on the border," he said, while referring to the long border in Texas alone. "The fact is, it's 1,200 miles from Brownsville to El Paso. Two things: How long you think it would take to build that? And then if you build a 30-foot wall from El Paso to Brownsville, the 35-foot ladder business gets real good."

So what does a complete review of Perry's record reveal? As it turns out, he sent a letter during his tenure as Texas Agricultural Commissioner that praised Hillary Clinton's 1993 health care reform efforts. "I think your efforts in trying to reform the nation's health care system are most commendable," he wrote. "I would like to request that the task force give particular consideration to the needs of the nation's farmers... Rural populations have a high proportion of uninsured people, rising health care costs, and often experience lack of services." He concluded by noting, "your efforts are worthy, and I...

Watch the video. It's Rick Perry in his own words.

I spoke to a group of politically active, so-called conservatives last week at a hotel here in my New Mexico hometown. One of the topics that kept coming up was whether I despised Texas Gov. Rick Perry as much as I despised most other candidates that the Republican/Democrat regime is trying to force me to pick from in the next election. Let’s think through some deep thoughts and do fact-checking on Perry and the entire Left/Right paradigm as most people seem to see it right now: You can spend about five minutes on the governor’s official website confirming that Rick...

At first glance, Labor Day weekend looks like it could be a lot of fun for Rick Perry and his fans. The odds of a Sarah Palin candidacy continue to shrink to irrelevance as she wrestles with incompetent local Tea Party organizers in Iowa over a long-planned appearance just outside Des Moines. Mitt Romney’s temporary triumph in securing top billing at a Tea Party Express event in New Hampshire, meanwhile, is being spoiled by protests from Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks organization. And Mitt is also looking a bit humiliated by his last-minute decision to change plans and appear at a candidate...

RedState's Erick Erickson tweeted that something's going on between Sarah Palin and the Iowa Tea Party., just as the Wall Street Journal reported.I looked up the reference Mr. Erickson gave, and there's definitely something going on, but it's "private, for now."Christine O’Donnell is off the guest list – again – and Sarah Palin is a “maybe.” In the latest episode in the drama over the speaking lineup for Saturday’s Tea Party of America rally in Iowa, organizer Ken Crow said Palin’s staff called this morning to say Palin’s appearance at the rally was “on hold” until three changes were made....

Mitt Romney is going into the lion’s den today. Romney is neither a veteran nor a Texan, but he is heading to San Antonio, Texas to address the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention one day after Gov. Rick Perry, who is both a veteran and a Texan, fired up the crowd with a patriotic paean to American exceptionalism. But with poll after poll showing Romney slipping into Perry’s wake, the former Massachusetts governor is keen to show that he’s not backing down. The latest CNN survey has Perry nearly doubling Romney among all candidates running or considering a run and...

Rick Perry’s letter earlier this month to DHS Secretary Napolitano demanding $349 million in compensation for having to house illegal-alien criminals is, I’m afraid, a political stunt — basically, shooting a coyote to distract attention from his bad immigration track record. And there’s a lot to distract attention from: * Perry supports amnesty for the illegal-alien population, wanting to relabel them “temporary” workers, while playing the same semantic game as other amnesty supporters in denying that his amnesty is an amnesty. * Ten years ago he signed into law a measure offering taxpayer-funded in-state tuition subsidies for illegal aliens attending...

Rick Perry has gotten the Sarah Palin treatment since he declared his intention to run for the presidency. No surprise there. The long knives always come out for anyone who excites conservatives and could be the next President. That's not to say that Perry doesn't have flaws. He does. Like any politician who's actually governed, he's had his share of mistakes, miscues, and screw-ups. Of course, you could even say the same thing about Ronald Reagan, who's quite properly considered to be one of the best Presidents in history despite the fact that he raised taxes, signed comprehensive immigration reform,...

For a small-government conservative on the presidential campaign stump like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a new federal regulation forcing farmers to get commercial drivers licenses would make a perfect example of Barack Obama’s Washington run amok. But there is no such regulation. During his debut in Iowa Sunday night in Waterloo, then again at on Monday at the Iowa State Fair Monday, Gov. Perry brought up the phantom “obscene, crazy” regulation in Texan terms. “If you’re a tractor driver, if you drive your tractor across a public road, you’re gonna have to have a commercial driver’s license. Now how idiotic...

SAN ANTONIO - Despite being asked by convention leaders to appear as state governor and not a presidential candidate, Gov. Rick Perry endorsed an aggressive foreign policy doctrine, including support for the concept of pre-emptive strikes, in his welcoming remarks Monday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention. Speaking to thousands of veterans and other registrants at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Perry also strongly defended the United States' unilateral powers in declaring war. 'A dangerous world' "It's a dangerous world that we live in today," Perry said. "As the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 approach,...

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic challenger Bill White agree that while plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero have stirred controversy, they don't object to a local decision affirming the Islamic group's right to build it. A New York City planning commission voted this week to clear the way for a planned Islamic community center and mosque near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

I just read the text of Rick Perry's remarks to the Border Summit on Aug, 21st 2001. How in the hell is this stuff slipping through the cracks without a single mention in the conservative press? If this had been Obama, Sean Hannity would have been talking about it 24/7 during the last presidential campaign. There are many passages in the speech that are of great concern to me, but this one really caught my attention. ...Legislation authored by border legislators Pat Haggerty and Eddie Lucio establishes an important study that will look at the feasibility of bi-national health insurance....

We are adults and most on FR are very intelligent persons. I think we can decide if a candidate is right for us. How about stop repeating the same Gardasil, Texas corridor, immigration stories over and over and over. Most have seen them by now if they have been paying attention. Most have judged the stories and condemn Perry to hell for them or they think that a president just might have different priorities than a state governor. Screaming at us in all caps isn't going to change any minds. FR isn't the entire universe of voters. We are a...

The latest Gallup Poll shows Gov. Rick Perry as the top candidate with tea Party voters, but some Texas tea party activists aren't drinking the "Perry for President" Kool-Aid. "It is very frustrating when you hear that there is a tea party candidate out there which has zero tea party endorsements," said Katrina Pierson, a key organizer for the Dallas Tea Party and the head of the Garland Tea Party. Pierson said that while Perry pushes a "pro-business" message on the campaign trail, she doesn't like many of the policies used to promote new Texas businesses, including the Emerging Technology...

Accumulating all this cash has certainly left the governor with favors to return, and return them he has, say critics. The case most often cited is that of billionaire Harold Simmons, who donated a total of $1.12 million to Perry and in turn secured permission to build a radioactive disposal site in west Texas. Not only did Simmons successfully lobby to have state law changed so that a private company such as his could obtain the requisite license, he also made sure the law would allow the granting of only one such license. Moreover, the license itself was approved by...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry has asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for nearly $350 million to cover the costs incurred detaining illegal immigrants in state prisons and county jails. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Perry criticized the federal government hasn't been doing enough to secure the border with Mexico, thereby allowing illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. and use taxpayer-funded resources, including prisons and jails. It's a claim the Republican governor has made many times before. The letter was dated Aug. 10, three days before Perry formally announced he is running...

The Perry campaign has distanced itself repeatedly from controversial passages in the book since Perry declared his candidacy Aug. 13. Perry wrote of Social Security that it was created “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government.” He likened the program to “a Ponzi scheme” and claimed Social Security was “a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal.” Again, a Perry spokesman walked the governor back from what he had written. The book was meant as “a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint...

Set aside the campaign chatter. Perry actually has a relatively moderate record on immigration. In 2001, he signed a law allowing undocumented students who graduate from Texas high schools to pay in-state tuition at Texas public universities. Last year he criticized Arizona's strict new immigration enforcement law, and said that it wouldn't be right for Texas. He's called for a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship. Other than this year's campaign against sanctuary cities, there is little in his decade-plus as governor to suggest that he has the appetite for a crackdown on economic migrants. NumbersUSA, a group that...