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First, it was conservative commentator and radio host Laura Ingraham declaring that her sources assured her that Rick Perry was running for president. Today, it was a paragon of the mainstream media, the Wall Street Journal, that claimed its sources assured it that the Texas governor had definitely decided to run for president.

In a post on the WSJ web site, James Freeman writes that “a Republican campaign veteran tells us that Texas Governor Rick Perry has decided to run for President, though the official word from Team Perry is still a definite maybe.”

Plenty of Perry advisers have told plenty of us that they think he’s going to go for the gold — but we get lots of warning (on and off the record) cautioning us that it would be premature to give us a definite yes.

But the Journal, not known for getting political stories wrong, is out there on a limb.

“Our normally reliable Republican source reports that Mr. Perry has surveyed the field and decided to get in the race later this summer, perhaps around the time of the national prayer meeting that Mr. Perry is hosting on August 6 at a Houston football stadium,” Freeman writes. “Our source also reports that Mr. Perry is aiming to compete in the Iowa Straw Poll, even though it occurs just a week later, on August 13. The thinking is that apparent front-runner Mitt Romney ‘does not reflect the Republican Party’ and is therefore vulnerable to a credible challenge from the right, especially after Mr. Romney’s recent squishy remarks on global warming.”

We don’t go with single unnamed sources on big stories, but who’s to say the Journal is wrong.

The Journal does have one caveat. It quotes Perry adviser David Carney thusly: “We don’t have to cloak our intentions, because we don’t know what our intentions are.”

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Want to learn more about Rick Perry and his presidential prospects? Visit TxPotomac’s Perry Watch pages for the latest polls, media hype, issues, supporters and critics and details of the Rick Perry explor-a-tour.

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