COMMENTARY | There are many who want Texas governor Rick Perry to run for the 2012 GOP nomination for president. Some even believe he is the last best hope for the Republican Party to take back the White House in January 2013, especially with the lukewarm response thus far displayed toward the GOP field of presidential contenders. But as the Governor continues to publicly state his indecision -- and semi-publicly court the favor of supporters and backers in Texas and Iowa (the key first primary -- caucus -- state) -- about running, he has also publicly stated that he has felt a "calling" of late. It is a common political ploy, to appropriate the blessings of a higher power, but Perry shies away from directly stating that the calling is/was from God. But if God has called, will the self-avowed Christian not feel compelled to answer?
"I'm not ready to tell you that I'm ready to announce that I'm in," Perry told the Des Moines Register this week. "But I'm getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I've been called to do. This is what America needs."
He has said his wife and family are supportive. And for those who put a little too much emphasis on his description of feeling the need to run as divinely inspired, Perry qualified his Register statement Monday while signing a Medicaid bill designed to contain costs.
"There's a lot of different ways to be called," he said, according to the Houston Chronicle. "My mother may call me for dinner. My friends may call me for something. There are people calling from all across this country ... and saying, 'Man, we wish you would consider doing this."
But did he mean then that his running had nothing to do with being "called upon" by God? Perry quickly assured the reporters, "Oh no, no, no. ... I don't ever get confused. I am a man of faith. I don't make any apologies about my faithfulness. ... Do I look for signs, and do I look for good Scripture that tells me how to live my life? Absolutely I do that."
But Perry has been "thinking about it" for a few months now, at least since just before Memorial Day (where he quickly fired off an "I'll think about it" at reporters when asked if he would consider running for president). Besides Rep. Michele Bachmann and undeclared former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, there does not seem to be a strong representative of the evangelical Christian camp. Southern evangelicals remain seemingly unrepresented as well, a void left by the mid-May announcement from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, an early GOP frontrunner, that he would not seek the 2012 Republican nomination. Mitt Romney, the current GOP frontrunner, is a Christian but he isn't an evangelical. Nor is he southern. A presidential bid by the Texas governor would seem to fit the bill.
But indicating that he might be divinely called upon by a higher power to enter the race while at the same time seeming reluctant is just smart politics, analysts might say. Grover Norquist, a leading Republican policy strategist and conservative activist, told The Daily Beast that an open lust for power scares people.
"My position is," Norquist said, "that anybody who ran for student body president in high school probably be kept away from power. We all went to school with these people. We know what they're like. They're not any fun to be with. You wouldn't want them running the prom'"or your life."
But Perry has generously mixed reluctance with being called upon to do something for the greater good, but he has shown he wants to run, even though he told the Register that he " never did and still don't today" wanted to be president . Norquist explained: " He's said he's been called, which means he wants to do it."
Gov. Rick Perry is expected to announce his decision either during or after "The Response," a day-long call-to-prayer "for a nation in crisis" scheduled for August 6 at Reliant Stadium in Houston. The event, presided over by Perry, is designed to ask for divine guidance and/or intervention on the nation's behalf in what organizers say is a time of governmental and social crisis.
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