The best you can do, is either go to his record and judge for yourself, or rely on the endorsements or criticisms of others (i.e. Governor Palin, or Barbour, or a DeMint, or a Rush Limbaugh, etc).
That said, Hutchinson, is not, or was she ever, a conservative, she was, at best, a right of center moderate and for the most part somewhat of a party loyalist.
In regards to Palin, one of the reasons I respect her highly, is that she doesn't endorse moderates or "lesser of 2 evils" in campaigns, if the choice is 2 liberals, then she ignores the race, if its a case of a moderate or a liberal, she isn't going to bother, she supports conservatives, period. The fact that she endorsed Perry, and then again, recently, brought up his name (without being prompted or asked, totally on her own), makes is pretty clear she likes him. That does carry weight with me.
Palin endorsed McLame for Senator, who is clearly a RINO. I think she did so out of loyalty for his putting her on the national stage. That is proof that Palin does endorse RINOs, or at least establishment non-tea party candidates, and brings into question her endorsement of Perry.
I am open minded to her support of Perry, I am just disturbed about some aspects of him. Going into the election, he sounds much like Bush did - a conservative talker who did advance some conservative views like low taxes, opposition to abortion, opposition to gun control, etc., and then spent wildly, created TSA and Homeland Security, and then flooded us with illegal aliens.
I would likely vote for Perry over Obama, but I really don’t want Baby Bush II.
I don’t begrudge him his having once been a Democrat, but I am terrified of his being the Chairman for Al Gore’s election campaign. I realize Gore was not so wildly socialist at the time - probably was still pro-life at the time. But still, that speaks volumes to me. Gore was never even a moderate and Perry thought enough of him to run his election campaign. That has me wary of him.
Several conservative here reveal he has all the right sound bites at election time, but doesn’t govern as a conservative. I will continue to do my homework concerning his conservative credentials, but I am very wary of him. I am not convinced yet he is much better than Romney.
I just re-read your post. Are you saying that DeMint and Limbaugh also vouch for his being a solid conservative?