IOWA CITY — He’d been off the campaign trail since his exit from the race in September, but Rick Perry was back at it on Tuesday in Iowa. This time the former Texas governor was on the stump for Sen. Ted Cruz, whom he endorsed Monday with only six days until the caucuses kick off.
The two-time presidential candidate’s goal? To tout Cruz as the reliable and “consistent” conservative in the GOP field as he contends with Donald Trump for Hawkeye State superiority.
“I know Ted Cruz will be a consistent conservative, and that’s what matters to me,” Perry told the Washington Examiner during a stop in Centerville. “He’s the same last year, as he is today, as he will be tomorrow, which — everyone else may have to defend their record because they change their position on issues.”
“It’s one of the things that Donald Trump is going to have to gain the confidence of the conservative voters that he’s a real conservative,” Perry said, pointing to the newly-released issue of National Review. “There are way too many places where Donald Trump has changed his positions — whether it’s on social issues, whether it’s on tax issues, whether it’s on private property rights issues…”
“[His] strongest indictment is his own voice,” Perry said of Trump’s past comments. While the longtime Texas governor has consistently taken a cleaver to Trump whenever possible, of note with his endorsement of Cruz is his consistent talk in support of a governor over a one-term senator, which Perry railed against during before and during his 2016 run.
However, as Perry conceded, the nation wasn’t interested in someone with experience at the executive level.
“The American people obviously don’t think a governor’s who they want leading the country, so I’m not going to argue with them,” Perry said. “I still think that, from my perspective, that experience is important.
“Here’s what I’m comfortable with having spent some substantial quality time with the senator: He knows what he does not know. He is very comfortable bringing people who have inordinate amount of experience and philosophically attuned to him in to help him govern. There is no person alive — not a man, not a woman — that can know everything about governing in Washington D.C. It’s impossible.”
Throughout his stops on the trail, seven of them on Tuesday, Perry talked at length about Cruz’s consistency on the issues, which has come under attack over the past two weeks from Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio.
Along with his surrogates, Rubio has tried to paint Cruz as a political opportunist whose positions shift for purely political purposes. Unsurprisingly, Perry dismissed those critiques from the Florida senator, saying it comes with the territory Cruz has entered.
“He’s winning,” Perry said flatly. “If you want the best indicator that you are leading the pack, it can be judged with how much incoming you are taking. He’s obviously in the lead.”
Perry knows a thing or two about being the center of attention and the leader in a GOP field. Upon his August entrance in the 2012 race, Perry was hit from all sides — calling himself a “piñata” in a debate before falling back in the pack after multiple poor debate performances.
Following up his day on the trail, Perry and Iowa Rep. Steve King are set to stump for Cruz at three events on Wednesday throughout the state ahead of the GOP debate on Thursday in Des Moines.
