You are correct in that Perry recieved a campaign donation from Merck. But that isn’t unusual in Texas as much of the political donations come from companies, etc as that is the law in Texas. A four figure donation isn’t that huge when compared to others.
Now with regards to Perry backing off. He didn’t back off per se from his EO of Feb. 07. But rather the legislature got to work and passed a law stopping his EO and had it in place by early May 07. In effect the people’s voice was heard by the legislature and the legislature acted accordingly. This is one item Perry will have to deal with if he runs and it becomes questionable if it will have a large impact on the voting public at large.
Perry did not veto the bill in May of 07. He could have been a BO and crammed it down our throats like OBAMACARE.