FWIW, we will never find the perfect candidate. Every person has made mistakes and taken positions on issues they've later regretted. The great President Ronald Reagan was a democrat at one time. I think we need to look at where the candidate is today and make a judgment whether any change is for convenience, or is real.
I like Perry a lot because I think he is the best opposite to obama. He is experienced. He is decisive. He wants govt out of our lives. He believes in God. He is Pro-Life. All that being said I like all the other candidates except for Romney (who knows what he really believes) and Paul (he's scary on foreign policy). I really wish we would avoid being so incredibly self destructive in our support for various candidates. If we get so "married" to one candidate and someone else gets the nomination do we want to stay home?
Said it before, I believe there are actually "conservatives" these days who are so suffering from "battered voter syndrome" that they would sit at home and let Barry Soetoro win a second term rather than vote for Reagan now, what with his record on selling arms to terrorists, cutting and running from Lebanon, signing amnesty for 3 million, allowing 12 million abortions in his eight years, and saddling us with a New World Order "read my lips" liar who got us Bill Clinton.
I think Edmund Burke would be labeled as a hypocritical Irish drunk.