As 30,000 faithful took refuge from triple-digit heat in the air-conditioned safety of Houston's massive Reliant Stadium on Aug. 6, Rick Perry was setting the place on fire. Mixing Bible passages with his own prayerful words, the Texas governor bowed his head, clasped his hands and paused to reflect, riding an almost visible wave of emotion in the crowd. "Father," Perry intoned from the makeshift pulpit, "our heart breaks for America ... We have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that, we cry out for your forgiveness."
Perry planned his revival — with its day of prayer, fasting and Christian motivational music — more than a year ago, well before he began considering a run for President in 2012, he says, and long before the country seemed on the edge of a double-dip recession. But by the time Perry arrived to deliver his 12-minute sermon, his crusade had turned into something bigger and more complicated: a righteous rollout for one of the latest-starting presidential campaigns in recent history.
His turn at the altar points to both the potential and perhaps the limits of Perry's 11th-hour candidacy. On the one hand, his knack for channeling the Tea Party has already earned him second place in polls, behind the current GOP front runner, Mitt Romney. Yet many party pooh-bahs fret that a man who has openly mused about a Texas secession from the Union and whose social agenda would have women seeking abortions undergo mandatory sonograms, may not be the strongest candidate for a party that believes it's on the verge of a broad, economy-based comeback. Perry and his strategists have an ecumenical solution for this dilemma: ignore everything but the issue of the moment — and keep the focus on jobs. His main talking point: at least a third of all new American jobs in the past two years were created in Texas. As Perry privately told a group of potential donors recently, "If I get asked what time it is, I'm going to talk about jobs and the need for job creation and how we do it in Texas."
In this respect, at least, history is on his side. Republicans have put a Texan on their ticket in six of the eight presidential elections going back to 1980. Which means that Perry, simply by getting in, is shortening the odds of boosting that performance to seven of nine. "The key is, I've got a record," he says with characteristic swagger. "And that record, particularly when it comes to ... creat[ing] jobs for our citizens, I will put that up against anybody who's running and particularly against this President we have today, whose jobs record is abysmal."
A Rebel with a Cause
If Rick Perry did not exist, the Tea Party probably would have invented him for this particular moment. The movement has been on a roll since it burst onto the scene two years ago, but its faithful has lacked a truly viable candidate in the 2012 sweepstakes. Romney has never stirred the Tea Party's drink; Michele Bachmann may lack staying power; Tim Pawlenty hasn't caught on; Jon Huntsman worked for the enemy.
By contrast, if Perry has a secret weapon, it is his appeal to the rainbow coalition that is now the Republican Party — from veterans to fiscal hawks, gun-rights advocates to religious conservatives, Constitution-waving libertarians to America-firsters. And unlike Romney, Perry was present almost at the creation of the Tea Party, attending some of its founding events and singing its praises early on. During his 2010 campaign, Perry often looked past Austin to attack Washington instead, condemning the 2008 TARP bailout and dismissing the "country-club Republicans." While Romney is typically buttoned up, Perry does these riffs with a visceral passion that his Massachusetts rival never attains. Two years ago, Perry starkly condemned Obama's government with "This is an Administration hell-bent on taking America towards a socialist country."