With everyone including the candidate perspiring in a Texas airport hangar, former Gov. Rick Perry today vowed that he’s ready to break a sweat in his second drive for the White House.
Perry put forward a national security platform on a stage that included “Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell and “American Sniper” wife Taya Kyle.
He became the 10th declared GOP candidate.
“Are we worthy of their sacrifice?” he said of the Greatest Generation, including his World War II veteran father. “The truth is, we’re at the end of an era of failed leadership. We have been led by a divider who has sliced and diced the electorate, pitting American against American for political purposes.”
“…No decision has done more than the president’s withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Let no one be mistaken. Leaders of both parties have made grave mistakes in Iraq, but in January of 2009, when Barack Obama became commander-in-chief, Iraq had been largely pacified. America had won the war, but our president failed to secure the peace. How callous it seems now as cities once secured with American blood are now being taken by America’s enemies all because of a campaign slogan.”
Perry said he’s running for president because “we don’t have to resign ourselves to debt, decay and slow growth; we have the power to make things new again, to project America’s strength again and to get our economy going again.”
“…You think of the arrogance of Washington, D.C., representing itself as some beacon of wisdom with policies that are smothering this vast land, with no regard to what makes each state and community unique. That’s just wrong! We need to return power to the states and freedom to the individual!”
Perry said he’s reaching out to “those that are struggling to just get by, that are smothered by regulation.”
“To the one in five children in families who are on food stamps, to the one in seven Americans living in poverty, to the one in ten workers who are unemployed, underemployed or just given up hope of finding a job, I hear you. You are not forgotten!”
On his first day in office, he said, he would “issue an immediate freeze on pending regulations from the Obama administration.”
He talked about his accomplishments as governor and pitched his crisis-management experience: “We will not find the kind of leadership needed to revitalize the country by looking to the political class in Washington. I’ve been tested. I’ve led the most successful state in America. I have dealt with crisis after crisis, from the disintegration of the space shuttle to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike, to the crisis at the border and the first diagnosis of Ebola in America. I have brought together first responders, charities and people of faith to house and heal vulnerable citizens dealing with tragedy.”
“The spirit of compassion demonstrated by Texans is alive all across America today. While we’ve experienced a deficit in leadership, among the American people, there is a surplus of spirit.”
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