I think Perry knows who his competition is and it isn't Rand Paul. I think his shot was named at Ted Cruz.
You’ve got to figure, though, that one notable feature of the Republican can field is that there are three freshman Senators. One of the biggest criticisms of Obama is his lack of experience, and like it or not that same criticism can be rightly leveled at Cruz, Paul, and most especially Rubio. All three of these guys poll ahead of Perry, and Perry is pretty equal opportunity as to his competitive streak. Anybody who has seen all the ads to relocate to Texas and seen the lengths to which their university system goes to recruit talent can attest to that.
Perry is sort of the anti-Jebby, to my mind. Jeb is one of those guys who is going to be all magnanimous with other people’s stuff, Perry OTOH would be good for eating other foreign governments lunch and peeing on all the corners like the neighborhood tomcat. I like that he understands that he is an American and has escaped ivy league hothouse flower syndrome.