POST
The Election 2012 Weekly Report: And then there were four
The Republican field continued to narrow this week with two once-promising candidates dropping out before this Saturday's pivotal South Carolina primary. Read More »
Barack Obama
Michele Bachmann
Herman Cain
Newt Gingrich
Jon Huntsman
Ron Paul
Rick Perry
Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum
Latest News
POST
Rick, we hardly knew ye
Rick Perry's presidential campaign, which is ending today, will almost certainly be remembered best years from now for the infamous "oops" moment, but he had some notable foreign-policy highlights as well. Read More »
POST
I’m gonna miss Rick Perry, the Foghorn Leghorn of presidential candidates
My wife’s favorite Republican candidate for amusement is Newt, but myself, I enjoy watching old Rick Perry. The man strikes me as a fool in a suit, almost a cartoon version of a Texas governor. Read More »
POST
Rick Perry doubles down on Turkey terrorism charge
After Turkey's Foreign Ministry lashed out at GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry for saying that Turkey is led by "Islamic terrorists," the Perry campaign doubled down on those remarks and told The Cable the incident shows why Perry is bolder than President Barack Obama and GOP rival Mitt Romney on foreign policy. Read More »
POST
The Election 2012 Weekly Report: Romney Rising
Romney might already be gearing up for a showdown with the president, but none of his opponents dropped out. After the drubbing in New Hampshire, the anti-Romney rhetoric from the other GOP candidates in South Carolina is getting harsh. Read More »
Profile SnapshotView Full Profile
FP Credentials
Perry lived in Germany and Saudi Arabia in the 1970s while flying cargo planes for the U.S. Air Force in Latin America, North Africa, and Europe. “I saw all of these different types of governments and I made the connections to how the people acted and looked, and it became abundantly clear to me that, at that particular point in time, that America was this very unique place and that our form of democracy was very rare,” he told the Abilene Reporter-News in April. As governor of Texas, he has traveled abroad and worked particularly closely with Latin America.
Overview
Perry may appear like an aggressive, American Exceptionalism-trumpeting defense hawk at first glance, but his views on issues such as the Afghanistan withdrawal, illegal immigration, and "military adventurism" complicate the picture. "We respect our allies, and we must always seek to engage them in military missions," he told a gathering of veterans in August. "At the same time, we must be willing to act when it is time to act. We cannot concede the moral authority of our nation to multilateral debating societies."
Advisors
The campaign recently hired Victoria Coates, a research director for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance art and history, to advise Perry on foreign policy. The Texas governor told Sean Hannity in November that he also discusses international affairs with Liz Cheney and John Bolton -- people "who actually understand, intimately, where these countries are, why they think like they think."
