Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is set to announce whether or not he will seek the White House for a second time on June 4 in Dallas.
Anita Perry, the former first lady of Texas, linked to an invitation to a “special announcement” on Twitter and said she and her husband “have been discussing the future of this great country and how our family can play a role.”
Lest there was any mystery at to the event’s purpose, an aide confirmed to msnbc that “Perry will be announcing his intentions on whether or not he will be running for POTUS.”
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Perry, the longest serving governor in Texas history, launched a late bid for president in August 2011. At the time, eventual nominee Mitt Romney was floundering in the polls and he was considered a frontrunner with the potential to bridge the gap between the party’s tea party, evangelical, and establishment wings. But the honeymoon didn’t last as Romney successfully attacked Perry from the right over his support for in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants and from the left for calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” while social conservative rivals pounced on his one-time support for mandatory HPV vaccinations as governor.
.@GovernorPerry & I have been discussing the future of this great country and how our family can play a role. https://t.co/S2EOc5sliC Already falling in the polls, Perry hit rock bottom in a debate with one of the most memorable moments in the campaign when he struggled to remember a list of three government agencies he would cut, offering up a weak “oops” instead. He drew negative attention again during a last-second gambit for evangelical voters in Iowa, in which he ran an ad decrying gays in the military. Perry wound up finishing fifth in the state caucuses and withdrew from the race shortly before the South Carolina primary, throwing his support behind Newt Gingrich. Perry’s stock starts low as a result of his 2012 struggles — he barely registers in national polls of GOP voters — but his resume remains as strong on paper as it was in the last presidential cycle, and he’s counting on his executive experience to prompt voters to give him a second look this time around.
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