Now that the cat's out of the bag, Rick Perry's presidential posture is less cagey and qualified than ever. Watch his sit-down interview with Time's Mark Halperin, and see if you come to any conclusion other than he's in:
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Many politicians feel the need to project a sense of fearlessness. Maybe it's just me, but I don't get the sense that Perry is feigning anything:
Does any aspect of running for President intimidate you?
No.
Does any aspect of it excite you or enthuse you?
Yeah, I’m kind of getting to the haul-in point and the idea that, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I mean, this is starting to get to that comfort level and I’ve got the calmness in my heart. I think that was a bit of a hurdle initially but I’m very calm in my heart that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.
Perry's answer on faith was also a good one. The Left will try to paint him as a zealot, exploiting his participation in "The Response" as fodder. Responses like this will render that smear less potent, in my estimation:
How does your faith inform your interest in being in public office?
Yeah, no different than it would a doctor or a lawyer or anyone else who does their job and that is a faithful individual. You know, my faith sustains me. I’m quite comfortable with my faith, but it is very much a foundation of my life and has been since my mid-20s.
Finally, Perry previews his sales pitch to primary voters: First, I'm Mr. Conservative. Then, jobs, economic growth, a receding federal government -- and did I mention jobs?
So if you got in, would you be the most conservative candidate in the race? Or as conservative as everybody else?
Yeah I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But again, we go back to what’s the most important issue here? I mean if somebody wants to go back and find, oh here’s a little spot right here—you know, I was a democrat at one time in my life. I was 25 years old before I think I ever met a person who would admit being a Republican. So the key is, I’ve got a record. And that record, particularly when it comes to the most important issues in this campaign, which is creating the climate of America that gives incentives to job creators to risk their capital and create jobs for our citizens, I will put that up against anybody who’s running and particularly against this President we have today, whose jobs record is abysmal.
...I’ve boiled it down pretty quickly to the four principles that we put in place in Texas that have worked rather well while the rest of the country has been going through some—most certainly the big states—pretty rough times. Texas has—I won’t say we’ve somehow totally missed this recession—but we’ve weathered it better than any other state from the standpoint of job creation. I think that is inarguable. But, don’t spend all the money. I mean, in Washington D.C. if you want to just get down to the pure epicenter, the nucleus of the problem in Washington D.C., is they’re spending too much money. Have a tax structure that’s fair, and as low as you can have it, and still deliver the services that the people require. Have a regulatory climate that is fair, predictable. Predictability is so important. Today in Washington D.C. the idea of predictability in the regulatory climate—it’s not there. That’s the reason there are so many people sitting on their money rather than investing it and taking the entrepreneurial risk. Then obviously, the fourth is to have a legal system that doesn’t allow for over-suing. And then government needs to step back and get out of the way. Stepping back and getting out of the way at the federal level is about allowing the states to compete against each other, the idea that Washington knows best how to educate our children, or knows best how to deliver health care our citizens, or for that matter knows best how to clean up the air. There are examples of each of those that I could go into, but I don’t want to filibuster here.
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Persuasive, and perfectly-suited to the current political climate -- especially on the Right. Could this be the guy? Many Republicans already think so. He'll enter the race on Saturday near the top of the pack:
As Rick Perry moves closer and closer to a run for the White House, a new national survey indicates that the longtime Texas governor is close to the top of the pack in the hunt for the Republican presidential nomination. According to a CNN/ORC International poll, 15 percent of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP pick Perry as their first choice for their party's nomination, just two points behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who's making his second bid for the White House. Romney's two point margin over Perry is within the survey's sampling error.
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