LYNCHBURG, Va. — Seeking to brandish his outsider status and evangelical roots, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry on Wednesday focused on religious values more than politics on friendly terrain at the nation’s largest Christian college.
“God uses broken people to reach a broken world,” the Texas governor told a packed arena of 13,000 students and faculty at Liberty University in Lynchburg.
Embracing that theme, Perry bent over backward to exude everyman status, waxing on about his own shortcomings.
“Four semesters of organic chemistry made a pilot out of me,” he said after bragging that he graduated in the top 10 — in a high school class of 13.
Some have questioned whether Perry, whose college report card was filled with C’s and D’s, has what it takes to be the leader of the Free World.
Perry’s tone was reminiscent of the one employed by another Texas governor, President George W. Bush, who successfully sold himself as the candidate with whom voters would most like to have a beer — or perhaps for the Liberty crowd, a nonalcoholic brew.
“He’s my favorite candidate in the race,” said 21-year-old Charity Myers of Richmond. “We see so many politicians here who are hard to believe. He seems genuine.”
Perry’s remarks focused largely on his upbringing, his blue-collar family in Paint Creek, Texas, where “indoor plumbing was a bit of a luxury” during his childhood.
Perry’s campaign is banking that his appeal with social conservatives and fiscally conservative Republicans concerned about the economy, will vault him to the 2012 GOP nomination.
“America is going to be guided by some set of social values — the question is going to be, whose values?” Perry told the crowd.
The perceived Republican front-runner took a decidedly political tone later Wednesday at a GOP fundraiser in Richmond, where he appeared with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.
On the Republican upset in New York’s 9th Congressional District on Tuesday, Perry said “[The special election] sent signals that President Obama will be a one-term president.” Perry also vowed to wipe out Obama’s health care overhaul on his “first day in office.”
The speeches in battleground Virginia were a welcome change of pace for the Perry campaign, which has spent much of the week playing defense against fellow Republican presidential candidates who have pummelled him in a pair of debates over the last week.
Though Perry’s remarks at Liberty, which was founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, were largely devoid of politics, they were firmly dismissive of politicians.
By far, the largest applause from the receptive crowd came when Perry said: “Don’t leave it to a bunch of Washington politicians to tell you how to live your life.”
The evangelical campus certainly was an atypical setting for a political rally of sorts. Before the speech started, many in the audience had their heads down in the Bible, and the entire crowd rose and sang worship songs in the moments before Perry’s remarks.
Not surprisingly, Perry struck the right chord with many in the crowd.
“This country was founded on Christian principles,” said Brandon Mitchener, a 19-year-old Liberty student from Annandale. “A lot of people in government want to squash that. I like that [Perry] is not afraid to stand up for those values.”
