Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he’s now “substantially better prepared” to be president — physically and mentally — than he was in 2012.
In a luncheon with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, the Texas Republican played down his age in 2016 (“66 is the new 46″
😉, and played up his experience (“We’re watching this young. inexperienced president stumble from scandal to foreign policy debacle after debacle.”
😉
But Perry also acknowledged that experience and ideas alone aren’t enough, and that being a three-term governor of Texas doesn’t automatically qualify someone to be president.
“I‘m glad I ran in 2012 as frustrating and terrible and humbling as it was,” he said of his aborted presidential campaign, which was marked by debate gaffes and questions about his health. “It was painful. It was very humbling.”
His takeaway: “Preparation is the single most important lesson I learned in that process,” he said. “Don’t take that as a decision on whether I’m going to run for the presidency or not. But if I do, I will be prepared.”
He said he’s also beaten the back problems that plagued him in 2012 with surgery and a new exercise regimen, replacing running with cycling and aquatics. Another change: “I stopped wearing cowboy boots,” he said.
Perry came to the luncheon promoting Texas’s record of job creation, but he conceded that he “from time to time will get distracted off of that.”
Case in point: his comments last week in San Francisco
comparing being gay to being an alcoholic. “I readily admit I stepped right into it,” Perry said.
The United States needs to “be a respectful and tolerant country for everybody,” he said, but he continued to maintain that if social issues were decided on the state level, “Our country would be happier.”
Perry dismissed questions about the popularity of his state’s junior senator, Ted Cruz, who has presidential aspirations of his own. He said it’s too early to know whether Cruz will have a lasting impact on politics.
“We all get our 15 seconds of fame, whether it was Ann Richards, whether it was George W. Bush, whether it was Rick Perry or whether it was Ted Cruz,” he said.
On Richards, the late Democratic Texas governor, he said, “I love Ann Richards,” he said, calling her “funny profound and profane.”
And on that, he struck a rare note of agreement with Democratic strategist Lily Adams, Richards’ granddaughter.
