NEW ORLEANS – As Republicans try to determine their strongest challenger to President Barack Obama, both the party establishment and conservative grass-roots activists don’t seem satisfied with their current options. George W. Bush’s successor as Texas governor is drawing much interest, even though he is not in the race.
A candidate in waiting, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is elbowing the Republicans already in the 2012 presidential contest as he courts party activists, operatives and donors still shopping for someone to back against Obama.
His appearance Saturday at the Republican Leadership Conference offered yet another tantalizing hint that he’s ready to upend a crowded field of candidates who have worked months to amass name recognition, organization and campaign cash. The longest serving governor of his state drew much interest despite little effort so far to put together a traditional campaign.
“I stand before you today as a disciplined conservative Texan, a committed Republican and a proud American, united with you to restoring our nation and revive the American dream,” Perry said during an address that repeatedly drew the crowd to its feet.
He sounded every bit a candidate.
“Our shared conservative values, our belief in the individual is the great hope of our nation,” he said.
Perry has long insisted he wouldn’t run. But in recent weeks, he has softened his refusals and his advisers have started laying the groundwork for a campaign in Iowa, whose caucuses kick off the nomination selection process. They characterize it as a coin-toss whether he enters the field in the coming weeks.
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The coyote-shooting, tough-talking ex-Democrat has never lost an election. Perry assumed office as governor in December 2000 when Bush resigned to become president and was elected to full terms in 2002, 2006 and 2010.
As Perry waits in the wings, the already announced candidates were doing their best to build support at the New Orleans conference.
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who used Monday’s candidates’ debate in New Hampshire to enter the race, raised the New Orleans crowd to its feet on Friday.
So, too, did Herman Cain, a former pizza executive and favourite of the small government, anti-tax tea party movement who has never served in public office. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, a favourite among the libertarian wing of the party, won praise for his latest White House bid.
All are trying to spark interest and capture the imagination of their party’s most active members. In speeches tailored for the party’s base, they hit similar messages about making Obama a one-term president, repealing his health care overhaul and lowering taxes.
Bachmann, who enjoys strong support from tea party activists and social conservatives, kept at it Saturday, telling a conference of conservative bloggers in Minneapolis that she is “a very different kind of leader” and accusing Obama of having “morbid obesity when it comes to spending and deficits.”
Absent from the New Orleans event were the nominal front-runner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty; and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who served three Republican administrations and then worked as Obama’s ambassador to China. Huntsman is set to officially enter the race on Tuesday.
Pawlenty spoke in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday before speaking to the online activists at Minneapolis’s RightOnline conference.
“The issue isn’t, ‘Can somebody stand up here and chirp and give a speech?’ The issue is do you have the fortitude to do it? Do you have the leadership ability and experience to do it?” Pawlenty said, drawing a polite reception compared with the rousing one given Bachmann hours earlier.
Much of the talk this past week about Pawlenty concerned his self-described lacklustre debate performance and his fumbled-then-renewed attack on the health care overhaul that Romney put in place in his state.
Romney has assembled a strong organization and is expected to produce impressive fundraising results in the latest reporting period. But questions about his record and authenticity give some hesitation.
Despite his perceived front-runner status, Romney finished in fifth place in a straw poll of participants at the New Orleans conference with 74 votes. Paul finished first with 612 votes. Huntsman did not address the conference, but received 382 votes to finish a surprising second. Aides said he was ill, but his wife, Mary Kaye Huntsman, came to meet privately with activists.
Bachmann collected 191 votes. Cain won 104 votes and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got 69 votes.
Republicans’ pining for new candidates has so far resulted in disappointment.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee decided to skip the race. Real estate tycoon and reality TV star Donald Trump flirted early and then left.
Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the party’s 2008 vice-presidential pick, overshadowed Romney’s presidential announcement in New Hampshire with an East Coast bus tour that took her to his home base of Boston and then across the border into New Hampshire, the state that hosts the first nominating primary.
She hasn’t said what she will do.
Gingrich’s campaign trouble has helped Perry. Gingrich’s senior aides resigned en masse over disagreements with the candidate. Many of Gingrich’s top aides are alumni of Perry campaigns and could return to Texas should Perry decide to run.
Indications were that he was leaning that way.
Gingrich’s former political director was laying the groundwork for Perry in Iowa. Perry planned a national day of prayer in Houston, a move seen by Republican insiders as a play to evangelicals who are an important part of the party’s base, particularly in Iowa.
And he isn’t afraid of criticizing Obama.
“That mix of arrogance and audacity that guides the Obama administration is an affront to every freedom loving American,” Perry said.
Yet he is starting late.
Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina traditionally are won through frequent visits and courting the local officials who deliver supporters, block by block. Perry has not been to Iowa since the 2008 campaign when he campaigned in the state for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
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Associated Press writers Philip Elliott in New Orleans, Brian Bakst in Minneapolis, and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
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