I can judge the words he wrote in the context of the time and the job he had at the time.
Rick Perry is not the perfect conservative, neither is any other candidate in the race in my opinion.
Except for Mitt Romney or Ron Paul, I would vote for any of the candidates in the current debate in the general election. If they want my vote and the votes of others, they will have to earn that chance in the up coming primary election.
This time should be rather rough-and-tumble as we vet our candidates. But we should be honest in our criticisms and fair in our comparisons. That is why I participate here on Free Republic.
The letter alone by no means disqualifies Perry. He has a lot of good positions on a lot of issues here in the year 2011.
What disqualifies him to me is legalizing the illegals. We can reverse bad legislation, but after it happens we cannot undo amnesty for tens of millions of illegals, which is national suicide.