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Sarah Palin got a reality show. Hillary Clinton is secretary of state. Mike Huckabee is on the radio and TV. Rudy Giuliani’s name is still on the door of that giant law firm. What will Rick Perry’s second act be? He has nearly three years, including another legislative session, left in his current term as governor. He opened and closed his presidential run with a message that’s still relevant in national politics and probably useful to the Republicans once their nomination battle is over. http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2012-presidential-election/out-race-and-back-states-rights/

I’m told reliably that Governor Perry will head up a 10th Amendment project for Speaker Gingrich to rally Governors and state legislators toward a plan of devolving power from Washington. This project will include helping shape the Republican platform for the general election. Governor Perry will also campaign for Speaker Gingrich in Texas.

Erick Erickson, the RedState founder who helped usher in the Rick Perry presidential candidacy at a convention the website put together in August, is now calling on the Texas governor to bow out ahead of the South Carolina vote for the sake of conservative unity: If Rick Perry stays in the race, conservatives opposed to Mitt Romney will be legitimately able to blame Rick Perry for dragging down either Newt or Santorum. If the person he endorses doesn’t win the nomination, it still doesn’t hurt him as much as staying in to take a few deciding votes. Huntsman has already...

[snip] "Here’s the quotation that’s getting the most attention: “Rick Santorum is a good man. He is a good father. He is a good Catholic. But he hasn’t always been a good conservative. And I make exceptions with his vote for Sonya Sotomayor as a for instance. That is a really liberal jurist that he helped put on track to become a Supreme Court jurist back when he voted to allow her to be on the Appellate Court. I mean, she is pro-abortion, would be my estimation of that. I mean, Obama is a very liberal president and she is...

From Public Policy Polling, this is really bad news for Rick Perry -- although at this point it cannot be unexpected: Rick Perry's Presidential campaign is doing about as bad in Texas now as it is everywhere else in the country. When PPP last polled the state in September he was at 49%, leading Mitt Romney by 39 points. Now Perry's support has declined by 31 points, leaving him in 3rd place at 18%. Mitt Romney at 24% and Newt Gingrich at 23% lead the way with Rick Santorum at 15%, Ron Paul at 12%, and Buddy Roemer at 0%...

Austin to get $11.7M in sales tax revenue Austin will collect $11.7 million in sales tax revenue from the state this month for sales that took place in November, up 6.2 percent from the same period last year, according to data released by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs. State sales tax revenue was $1.98 billion, up 9.5 percent compared to November 2010 sales. “Sales tax revenue continues to grow in almost all major economic categories and revenue has now increased for 21 consecutive months,” Combs said. Sales taxes from retail trade and restaurant activity continue to improve and tax revenue from...

Rick Perry says he's going on to campaign in Florida's Jan. 31 Republican presidential primary - no matter how he fares in South Carolina.

After a disappointing fifth-place finish in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, Texas Governor Rick Perry said he is going home to Texas to assess "whether there is a path forward for myself in this race." "With the voters' decision tonight in Iowa, I've decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race," Perry told supporters at the end of the night. The candidate, once considered a frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination, earned just 10 percent on Tuesday's contest with more

Must See – Rick Perry: America is Calling The Right Scoop January 3, 2012 Wow. This ad from Perry has got to be the best ad I’ve seen this political season. It spawns those deep feelings of patriotism and eagerness to fight for this country and elect a leader who will have our back in Washington. Just a dang good ad.

In a campaign speech late Tuesday night, Governor Rick Perry stated that he is "returning to Texas" to reassess whether he is going to continue running for President. The speech contained several emotional moments, in particular two moments. The first was when he read a letter from an adoring supporter who called him a "great man." The letter described a conversation that Mr. Perry had had with a soldier and how his supporter looked on in awe as he watched Governor Perry call the veteran his "Christian brother." The second was when Perry announced that he would be returning to...

Influential Iowa conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats called this evening for Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry to drop their bids for the Republican presidential nomination in order to maximize Rick Santorum's chances of defeating Mitt Romney in a one-on-one matchup. "The last thing Mitt Romney wants is to go one-on-one with Rick Santorum," said Vander Plaats, who endorsed Santorum in December. "He wants to have a multiple-candidate field. So I think some of these candidates need to reassess where they're at tonight."

Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, appears doomed to a fifth-place finish in Iowa. Unless he drops out, that would make South Carolina his last stand against Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney. The problem is that he might not receive an invitation to an upcoming South Carolina debate (given the debate criteria). Candidates can qualify to participate in the CNN/Southern Republican Leadership Conference debate January 19th (two days before the South Carolina primary) in one of four ways. First and second, they can place in the top four in either Iowa or New Hampshire. Third and fourth, they can qualify by averaging seven...