All is quiet on the western front of Rick Perry’s continued resurgence in the bubbling field of GOP presidential contenders, as polls continue to show the former Texas governor among the bottom of the pack.
But that uphill battle is not deterring Perry’s push to rewrite history after the bungled 2012 campaign in which he fizzled in South Carolina shortly after a meteoric rise to frontrunner.
The black-rimmed rebranding of Rick Perry over the last few months has featured a new beefing up on policy prowess and a tone and tact that is set to distinguish him from the other TX favorite son Sen. Ted Cruz.
At a recent address in Washington, Perry hinted at this new strategy that Republicans cannot simply be the party of ‘no:’
“We must articulate what we are for. And in that respect, as we look to 2016, we must remember we are not electing a critic-in-chief, we are electing a commander-in-chief.”
Perry’s claim to legitimacy is credible. The state of Texas is the 13th largest economy in the world, and Perry is the longest serving governor of that economy during arguably one of the most challenging times in its history.
Despite that challenge, Texas boasted nearly all of the new job gains during the so-called Great Recession, despite that President Obama attempted to take credit for those gains in his recent SOTU address. The question in the coming months will be whether Perry can leverage those successes in the GOP primary debates alongside as many as six other executives.
