USA Today
By Catalina Camia Rick Jervis
June 4, 2015
Former Texas governor Rick Perry will announce Thursday that he'll make a second bid for the White House.
The
campaign's new website went up early in the day, saying that Perry
offers "tested leadership" and "proven results," particularly in job
creation.
Later
this morning, at a small municipal airport just north of downtown
Dallas, Perry is anticipated to join a growing field of Republican
candidates for president that
includes fellow Texan Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and
former business executive Carly Fiorina. Former Florida governor Jeb
Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are also likely candidates for the
Republican ticket. Bush said Thursday morning
he would announce his decision on June 15.
Though
he left office on Jan. 20, Perry has unfinished business back home in
Austin. He was indicted last year on felony counts of abusing his power
as governor by threatening
to veto funding for a district attorney unless she resigned because of a
drunk-driving arrest. Perry has denounced the case as a political witch
hunt, and conservatives have rallied to his cause.
Perry,
65,begins the race with a slate of deep-pocket donors such as
billionaire Red McCombs, founder of Clear Channel, who have bankrolled
his Texas campaigns. He has
hoped to draw voter support from leading the booming Texas economy the
past 14 years. But the state lost 25,000 jobs in March and oil projects
have stalled in the wake of plunging oil prices, though the state's 4.2%
unemployment remains well below the national
average of 5.4%
Perry
has been forceful in denouncing President Obama's leadership,
particularly when it comes to dealing with Iran and its nuclear
ambitions and the threat from the Islamic
State. "To deny the fundamental religious nature of the threat and to
downplay the seriousness of it is naive," Perry said about ISIL during
his remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The
question is whether Perry can erase doubts raised about his readiness
for the White House after his 2012 bid. Once touted as Mitt Romney's
biggest threat, the longest-serving
governor in Texas history made a series of self-inflicted campaign
mistakes that showed he was ill-prepared for the rigors of a national
campaign.
Even
before Perry uttered "oops" in a nationally televised debate when he
couldn't remember the name of the third federal agency he wanted to
eliminate, the Texan's campaign
was in shambles because of his inability to rebut Romney's attacks on
his record.
Perry
finished fifth in the Iowa caucuses and limped into New Hampshire. He
quit just days before the South Carolina primary and endorsed former
House speaker Newt Gingrich,
who briefly gave Romney a scare but also ended up losing the Republican
nomination.
"It
was the weakest Republican field in history, and they kicked my butt,"
Perry said in a self-deprecating speech at the 2012 Gridiron Club
dinner.
While
Perry has more than 14 years of executive experience in Texas to run
on, he also comes into the 2016 race competing for the support of social
and fiscal conservatives
aligned with the Tea Party — his natural base — with likely rivals such
as Scott Walker, Rubio and Cruz.
He's
spent time repairing his tattered image in the hopes of fulfilling his
vow to be much better prepared in his second presidential go-round.
Perry's reviews from his
trips to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have generally been
good.
Last
year, Perry remained on the national stage as a forceful critic of
Obama's border security strategy. He deployed National Guard troops to
the Texas border with Mexico
to stem the tide of drug smugglers and unaccompanied children from
Central American countries.
The
deployment of the National Guard was in contrast to the stances Perry
took in the 2012 campaign, in which he defended the Texas law he signed
as governor granting
college tuition to children of undocumented immigrants. Perry was
branded in 2012 as "soft" on immigration by conservative rivals such as
Rick Santorum, and slammed Romney and other critics of the in-state
tuition policy by saying "I don't think you have a
heart."
Freed
by his decision not run for another term as Texas governor, Perry
schooled himself in foreign policy, economics and other issues that
dominate presidential campaigns
by bringing in outside advisers for tutorials.
Perry,
frequently dismissed by Texas Democrats as a lightweight, told MSNBC
that running for president "is not an IQ test" but an examination of
someone's resolve, philosophy
and life experiences. Given his 2012 presidential campaign, however,
Perry conceded that he's got little wiggle room in the 2016 election
cycle.
"Everybody
has some margin for error," Perry told MSNBC in December. "I've
probably got less than some other folks, but that's OK."
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment