Texas Republicans Reject "Perry For President"

The rumor has been flying around for more than a year now that Texas governor Rick Perry is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. He has seemed to leave this option open by refusing to either deny or admit it. However, he has been aligning himself with some of the national teabagger crowd like Sarah Palin, and this makes people believe he is seriously considering a run for the presidency. Some believe he is running for a third term as governor just to keep his name before the voters.

If so, he may want to reconsider that. Public Policy Polling conducted a survey of 500 Republican primary voters on June 19th and 20th (which has a margin of error of 4.38%). They asked these Republicans whether Perry should run for president, and the outcome of the poll did not make Perry look very good. Here are the numbers:

14% supported the idea of Perry running for president

63% opposed the idea of Perry running for president

23% were unsure about the idea of Perry running for president

The PPP poll then listed several possible candidates and asked the 500 Republicans who they would support in a presidential primary. Perry looked even worse when compared to other possible candidates. Here's how this "straw" poll came out:

23% supported Newt Gingrich

18% supported Mike Huckabee

17% supported Sarah Palin

14% supported Mitt Romney

8% supported Ron Paul

8% supported Rick Perry

That's pretty bad to tie for 5th in a six-way race in his own home state. At this point it doesn't even look like Perry could come close to winning a Republican primary for president in Texas, and if he does this badly in Texas he's bound to do even worse in other states. It's still a couple of years until the next presidential elections, but it doesn't look like there's much chance of another right-wing Texan going to the White House, and that's a very good thing.

Maybe the legendary Molly Ivins put it best when she said, "Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be President of the United States, please pay attention." It looks like Texas Republicans are now paying attention.