Perry tells Register he's feeling 'call' to run

In one of the hardest indications yet that he's a likely candidate, Rick Perry gave an interview to the politically important Des Moines Register last week, in which he said he is beginning to feel a "call" to run for president:

“I’m not ready to tell you that I’m ready to announce that I’m in,” Gov. Rick Perry told The Des Moines Register. “But I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs.”



Another big-name potential Republican presidential candidate who is still on the sidelines, Sarah Palin, told Fox News in May that she has “that fire in the belly” to run. It remains a question whether Perry does.



“I’ll be real honest with you, I don’t wake up in the morning – never did and still don’t today – and say, ‘Gee, I want to be president of the United States,’ ” Perry, 51, said by phone last week.



But his wife, Anita, and hundreds of people nationwide say they want him to run, he said. He said he would likely decide in two or three weeks


The entire Register piece, which balances Perry's potential impact on the field, also looks at his economic record in the state and has the governor talking about frequently-made comparisons between him and another Texan, George W. Bush, as a potential negative:

“The idea of ‘Just because you’re from Texas, you’re all alike and you’re all cut from the same cloth’ is a bit of a stretch,” Perry said. “The folks that want to make that comparison, they’ll figure out pretty quick that, ‘Hey, this guy Perry, he’s different.’ ”

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