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The new Gallup poll of the Republican contenders is out, this time with USA TODAY branding. Just looking at the frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney in isolation, it looks like Romney is gaining. What I find interesting though is where that support appears to be coming from. Romney’s support may be coming from Michele Bachmann. Facts of the September poll real quick: 439 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, MoE 6. August’s poll had an MoE of 4 for the Republican subsample, using mobile and landline phones. Obviously there are other explanations for these movements from August to September, but just...

CORPUS CHRISTI — Gov. Rick Perry is under attack for trying to prevent a cancer whose yearly death toll exceeds this nation’s 9/11 losses by more than a thousand. On this issue, we are compelled to defend him — an unfamiliar role — and to wonder whether the master politician hand-picked his attackers. We speak, of course, of the other Republican presidential candidates and their assault on Perry’s 2007 executive order that all sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer and genital warts. The order was soon overturned in a hail of criticism...

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WASHINGTON - A 2007 executive order by Texas Gov. Rick Perry has become the latest post-debate headache for the Republican presidential front-runner, who was accused of "crony capitalism" Tuesday by Rep. Michele Bachmann. The fight over requiring vaccinations for young girls, which surfaced in Monday's Florida debate, involved government prerogatives and cancer. But it also had a strong moral subtext: Bachmann and other social conservatives objected to forcible inoculations against a disease spread by sexual activity

Shortly after the 2006 gubernatorial election, a young Democratic activist invited me out for coffee to tell me how I screwed up as the campaign manager for Democrat Chris Bell. And such was my fragile state after the grueling, two-year campaign that I accepted. It wasn't that the Democratic donor base had abandoned its party's nominee in favor of Comptroller Carole Strayhorn, who had abandoned her own Republican Party to run against Rick Perry. And it wasn't that satirist Kinky Friedman had made cynicism cool and captured thousands of disaffected white Democrats. It was that he thought Chris Bell wasn't...

Rick Perry’s Campaign Approach Is Hitting All the Right Notes Seth Mandel July 26, 2011 A pro-Rick Perry group is taking advantage of a new rule in the Iowa straw poll that allows voters to write in a candidate. GrowPAC will air radio ads in Iowa urging voters to write in Perry’s name in the Ames straw poll next month. The move would–if the ad works–help Perry in two ways: it would reveal public support for Perry without having to meet expectations, as he would if his name were officially on the ballot, and it will drain support from Perry’s...

GrowPAC, a group founded by former New York Senate candidate David Malpass, will air radio ads in Iowa urging people to write Perry's name onto the Ames straw poll ballot. "President Obama is making things worse. We need a president who will stop this," Malpass says in the spot. "Iowa has a chance to turn things around for America. At the Ames Straw Poll write in Rick Perry, he can win and make America secure again. I worked for Ronald Reagan and I know how countries create growth and jobs. Let’s give Rick Perry a chance." Continue Reading The 60-second...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is all but certain to launch a presidential campaign and is nearing an announcement set for the second half of August, according to sources familiar with his political team's planning. For months, Republican activists, donors, elected officials, and even voters have dithered about their choices in the 2012 presidential primary contest. But they may have their man in Rick Perry, a telegenic and booming political presence who boasts executive experience as the nation's longest serving governor, as well as a healthy level of support from the tea party faithful. Two new national polls released on Friday...

Many conservatives and Tea Party activists across the country are eagerly anticipating the entry of Texas Governor Rick Perry into the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Yet Fox Business correspondent Charlie Gasparino suggests that many New Yorkers on Wall Street, presumably of both political parties, are not at all excited about the possibility of a Perry presidency. Gasparino warns: “I talk to a lot of Wall Street guys . . . you know I don’t think a guy from Texas can win again. I just think there’s a Texas taint to it all. And I know the big money...

Three months after Gov. Rick Perry ignited a firestorm by issuing an executive order to require schoolgirls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, he is letting a bill go into law that will undo his mandate. In an emotional speech to reporters Tuesday, during which the governor surrounded himself with women whose lives have been affected by the cancer-causing infection, Perry laid blame for future cervical cancer deaths at the feet of lawmakers who supported the bill. Perry thanked the minority of legislators who voted against the bill and said, "No lost lives will occupy the confines of their...

As governor of Texas, Rick Perry has argued that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has strangled business and interfered with state environmental efforts, and he has championed a half-dozen lawsuits challenging federal air pollution and greenhouse gas regulations. The dispute with the EPA serves as a proxy for larger Perry arguments about states' rights versus federal power. It "illustrates how Washington's command-and-control environmental bureaucracy is destroying federalism and individuals' ability to make their own economic decisions," Perry wrote in his book "Fed Up! " So, should he run for the White House and win, how would a President Perry treat...

With speculation mounting as to whether Rick Perry will make a White House run, two national polls released Friday morning show the Texas governor within close reach of front-runner Mitt Romney. The Massachusetts governor edges Perry by 16 percent to 14 percent, in a CNN/ORC International survey and by 17 percent to 14 percent in a Fox News poll. The CNN survey shows an increased enthusiasm for a Perry presidential bid. In May, only 40 percent of Republican respondents wanted him to jump into the candidate pool, a number that's now risen to 50 percent. Fifty-five percent want former Alaska...

4 ways Rick Perry could shake up the GOP race The Texas governor is flirting with a run for the Republican presidential nomination — and he'd arguably make the contest a lot more interesting July 21, 2011 Republicans disappointed with their party's current slate of presidential candidates are stepping up the pressure on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to enter the race. And it's looking increasingly likely that Perry will declare his candidacy soon. "I'm getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I've been called to do," Perry told the Des Moines Register recently. "This is what...

Senior Aides to Texas Governor Rick Perry say they remain at least two, and as many as four weeks away from any final decision on whether to run for the GOP presidential nomination. Governor Perry is described as enthusiastic about the possibility and a reference to his wife Anita's encouragement yesterday, is actually a reflection of what aides say is many months of her agitation in favor of running. His time frame for getting into the race is about creating the financial network to fund a national campaign that goes big in every state, not state-by-state like others are now...

In the Russell Senate Office Building Caucus Room, Fred McClure was watching the crowd. It was March 1978, and the American Agriculture Movement — a pressure group for government support of farm prices — was meeting with Texan congressmen. A legislative aide to Sen. John Tower (R.), McClure was leaning on a door when a rancher from Paint Creek, Texas, named Rick Perry walked past. Newly retired from the Air Force, Perry held a degree in animal science from Texas A&M. His class ring gave him away. Spotting the ring, McClure, a fellow Texas A&M grad, introduced himself, and the...

Boarded-up shops and a nearly empty parking lot provided the backdrop for former Masschusetts' Gov. Mitt Romney’s visit today to a struggling shopping center near the intersection of Victory and Laurel Canyon boulevards. Romney, presumed to be among the leading Republican contenders for the presidency in 2012, said President Barack Obama’s economic policies have contributed to the decline of this and many other malls across America. “Proposing raising taxes did not put people back to work. Obamacare made it less likely for employers to want to hire people. The talk about cap-and-trade and higher energy costs made it less likely...

John King CNN interview: 5:19 minute video: Could Rick Perry shake up GOP W.H. race?GUESTS: Erick Erickson [Red State] and Mimi Swartz [Texas Monthly] discuss the potential presidential candidacy of Texas Gov. Rick Perry.Swartz: “Formidable campaigner. People on the East Coast underestimate him at their peril. He’s relentless. Perry will fight to the death if he wants this.” King: If he gets in, who gets hurt? Erickson: Pawleny has most to lose. Bachman loses. Hurts Romney -- explains in detail. Palin and Giuliani won’t get in if Perry gets in. Swartz: quoting another pundit re: Bush/Perry -- Bush aristocratic –...

Speaking this morning to the Texas Municipal Police Association in Austin, Gov. Rick Perry returned to one of his favorite subjects over the last few years, saying the Obama administration has inappropriately handled security issues on the Texas-Mexico border. Perry, who told the Des Moines Register in recent days that God may be calling him to run for president, has long said Washington has not deployed enough manpower to the Texas-Mexico border. He repeated that criticism this morning, saying he wants 3,000 Border Patrol agents along the border in Texas and 1,000 troops from the National Guard. He said...

If Texas Gov. Rick Perry runs for president, he'd bring along strong conservative credentials. He's advocated laws that require a sonogram before an abortion and that force police to enforce federal immigration law.

Gov. Rick Perry's political stock has soared in recent months as he has traveled the country touting a decade of fiscal restraint in Texas under his leadership. Last month, Perry made Texas history by signing a two-year state budget that cuts overall spending for the first time in over 40 years. Perry has long promoted the state's fiscal record as a model for the country and a key to why Texas has weathered the recession better than most other states. He has opposed new taxes and been vehemently anti-Washington, and his message is drawing interest among Republican primary voters nationwide....