Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks to local residents during a campaign stop at the Hotel Pattee as Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, left, listens, Monday, Jan. 2, 2012, in Perry, Iowa. (AP/Charlie Neibergall)
Governor Rick Perry told supporters last night that he is returning to Texas to reassess his campaign. The Texas governor cancelled three days of events in South Carolina.
CBS News reported:
After a disappointing fifth-place finish in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, Texas Governor Rick Perry said he is going home to Texas to assess “whether there is a path forward for myself in this race.”
“With the voters’ decision tonight in Iowa, I’ve decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight’s caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race,” Perry told supporters at the end of the night.
The candidate, once considered a frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination, earned just 10 percent on Tuesday’s contest with more than 90 percent of the votes counted.
“With a little prayer and reflection I’m gonna decide the best path forward,” Perry said.
“But I wanna tell you, there has been no greater joy in my life than to be able to share with the people of Iowa and of this country that there is a model to take this country forward and it is in the great state of Texas,” he added.
The candidate is still slated to participate in two upcoming Republican debates, but has canceled three days of events in South Carolina.
Erick Erickson says it’s not over for Rick Perry:
If I were Perry, I’d wake up tomorrow, say I refuse to surrender the Republican Party into the hands of big government conservatives after all the gains the tea party has made, and then announce I’m firing all my political staffers and communications staffers and ask South Carolina to help me reboot to victory. Make it an Alamo stand and, if like at the Alamo Perry goes down, perhaps there’ll at least be a rallying cry for small government conservatism left over.
That’s just me. Perry’s policy people have been phenomenal. The comms staff and political staff so badly bungled this that Rick Perry just suffered the first political loss of his career.
