I don’t know much about Perry but I am willing to listen.
I have posted before against Perry, but, contrary to what some are saying, his record is no worse than mixed. Bachmann is more consistently conservative, but Perry has a more conservative record than most of the field. He has also been an effective legislative strategist in a weak-governor form of state government.
What are his flaws? His endorsing Rudy in 2008 was an absurd thing for a Texas governor to do. Then, there are the TTC and Gardasil fiascos. He also has been more talk than action on border enforcement until recently (but he has been quite serious on the border issue in this legislative session). Nevertheless, he has done a moderately good job of constraining taxes and spending (under the Texas Constitution he has far less legislative influence than outsiders would assume), he has been consistently good on promoting a culture of life, and he has been willing to stand up to the Feds on occasion (including mentioning the “S” word (secession), which is an unusually bold thing for governor to do).
Without going into all of the details, Perry is something of a conservative with some RINO tendencies. Currently, Perry is trending strongly to the right. He isn’t my first, second, or third choice, but he is better than Romney, Gingrich, Huntsman, Daniels (who is not getting in), Trump (who is out for now), and Pawlenty. He is also more electable than people I like better.
Perry is Rudy Giuliani, but without the dress.
The first two are, "Karl Rove".
The second three, "New York Times".
The Timesmen want a Southerner to run, since they have a built-in hate library they can apply to any Southerner who isn't a liberal Democrat, starting with the word, "Them".
As in, knuckle-walking, corpse-breath, snaggle-toothed, nigra-burning, red-flannel yayhoo-zombie throwback.
We're talking, major hate.
If The New York Times is booming him up, you can stop right there and never lose another minute's sleep.
Oh,and Rick is gay-friendly. Very, very, very gay-friendly. And NWO-friendly, too. As I said, "Karl Rove".