Ronald Reagan was a Democrat for much of his life too.
I don’t see this as a big deal. In 1987 (when I turned 18), I registered to vote as a Democrat, mainly because I was so disgusted by controversial Arizona Governor Evan Meacham. I even volunteered for the recall campaign against him, though Meacham was eventually impeached and did significant damage to the Republican party in Arizona for years. In the 1988 Democrat primary, I voted for Al Gore as he seemed the most conservative of the Democrat field. (Back then, he was a conservative southern Senator who was pro-life and his wife was very active in social issues such as criticizing the music industry for the trash they were putting out.) In the general election, I changed my party back to Republican and voted for George HW Bush and have been a Republican ever since. Gore later proved himself to be a political whore who was very astute in enriching himself over the whole Global Warming thing.
People evolve in their thinking and Perry has governed conservatively with passion for the 2nd and 10th Amendments. Yes, he has made mistakes, but he is poised to beat Obama like a drum.
Not only that, Reagan voted for FDR all four times.
Reagan was a New Deal Democrat. He joked that he had probably become a Democrat by birth, given that his father, Jack, was so devoted to the Democratic Party. The younger Reagan cast his first presidential vote in 1932 for Franklin Roosevelt, and did so again in the succeeding three presidential contests. His faith in FDR remained undimmed even after World War II, when he called himself “a New Dealer to the core.” He summarized his views in this way: “I thought government could solve all our postwar problems just as it had ended the Depression and won the war. I didn’t trust big business. I thought government, not private companies, should own our big public utilities; if there wasn’t enough housing to shelter the American people, I thought government should build it; if we needed better medical care, the answer was socialized medicine.” When his brother, Moon, became a Republican and argued with his sibling, the younger Reagan concluded “he was just spouting Republican propaganda.”
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/print.aspx?article=1082&loc=b&type=cbbp