Reagan was a socialist-leaning union activist before he literally saw the light -- exposing the fallacy of his own well-intended work. He became the greatest Conservative leader of the last century, precisely because he was so convinced of the rightness of Conservative values and principles.
I point that out to counter the "Perry was a Democrat" arguments by people who do not understand Southern local and state politics prior to the 1994 Revolution. In 1988, Perry supported the most conservative Presidential candidate his party had at the time -- Al Gore. That was back when Ted Kennedy held the Left anchor, and Al and Tipper were campaigning against the Cultural Left. Algore was a fraud as we all know, but that was the situation in 1988 in much of the South.
I'll take Perry's 10-year record as Texas governor in a heartbeat. When Sarah Palin endorses him, I suspect a lot more Republicans will, too...
Reagan was an anti-communist union leader, and a man who’s military service stretched from 1937 to 1945, and who voted with the rest of America for FDR, and then Truman in 1948.
Reagan was no “RED”, I don’t know what you think his “work” was as a “Red”, but we do know that he was publically campaigning for Republicans in every presidential election after 1948 until 1962 when he formally switched registration to enter politics himself.
Perry was the anti-Reagan, post 1960s, post RoevWade, Jimmy Carter democrat, entering elective office in the same years as Reagan’s 64% sweep of Texas, and fighting to replace President Reagan with Al Gore at the height of the Cold War.