Halperin- Does any aspect of running for President intimidate you?
Perry- No.
Halperin- Does any aspect of it excite you or enthuse you?
Perry- 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.
For some Conservatives it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas and the gift under their tree is a candidate, Governor Rick Perry, that prior to officially announcing, is already statistically tied with the GOP front runner, Mitt Romney, who officially announced his candidacy a while ago.
Both CNN and McClatchy-Marist polled and found Perry 2 and 3 points, respectively, behind Romney.
The 2012 election will have a focus on job creation, which is where Perry rises head and shoulders above every other candidate. Perry has been the Governor of Texas since December, 2000.
In May, 2011, it was reported that from April 2001 to April 2011 Texas has increased it's private-sector jobs by 732,800. No other state topped 100,000 private sector jobs created in the same time frame.
"Texas added more jobs in the past 10 years than the total jobs of the 19 states, including the District of Columbia, that were positive for job growth."--- The Business Journals
McClatchy:
Perry boasts that Texas has created 1 million jobs since he took office in December 2000, while the national economy has lost 1.5 million jobs.
Looked at another way, 37 percent of all net new American jobs since the recovery began were created in Texas, according to Richard Fisher, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Economists at the Dallas Federal Reserve found that since June 2009, Texas added 265,300 net jobs, out of 722,200 nationwide. New York was a distant second with 98,200 and Pennsylvania added 93,000.
Job growth will be a major factor in 2012, but Conservatives will also want to know more about Perry's positions on a variety of other issues as well and the Internet is always a gold mine of information.
Times' The Page interview transcript can be found here.
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