The Texas governor who at this time a year ago was viewed as a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney joked about his candidacy during an appearance this afternoon in Iowa. Governor Rick Perry spoke to several hundred people packed into a Waukee church.
“I tell folks that my mouth may probably be the biggest reason I was the shortest-lived front-runner in the history of a presidential campaign. Y’ll remember that,” Perry said. “I was the front-runner in the presidential campaign…It was one of the most exhilarating three hours of my life.”
The crowd laughed and clapped at his self-deprecating humor. Perry was one of the speakers at the day-long Family Leadership Summit and he delivered an endorsement of the newly-minted GOP ticket.
“In Ecclesiastes 4:12, it says a person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two men can stand back-to-back and conquer,” Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have each other’s back. Let’s us have theirs.”
Perry told the crowd there are some who want to “silence the voices of faith.”
“I believe you should, instead, sound Gideon’s trumpet,” Perry said, to shouts of “Amen” from the crowd. “Together we can do more than bring change to Washington, D.C. We can bring an awakening to America.”
Perry spoke just before a group of conservatives formally announced their effort to vote Justice David Wiggins off the Iowa Supreme Court this November because he joined the court’s 2009 ruling on same-sex marriage.