OTTUMWA, Iowa — Riding high in the polls, Gov. Rick Perry rode into the Hawkeye State on Saturday with tough talk on President Barack Obama and a declaration that Social Security isn't only a Ponzi scheme but a “monstrous lie” for younger people.

“If you're for the status quo in America, I'm not your guy,” Perry told an overflow crowd eager to see the presidential candidate at The Vine Coffeehouse.

Asked by a woman in the crowd about Social Security being viewed as an entitlement program, Perry reiterated the suggestion in his anti-Washington book “Fed Up!” that the program amounts to a Ponzi scheme.

“It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they're working and paying into Social Security today (and) the current program is going to be there for them is a lie,” Perry said. “It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them.”

Later, in Des Moines, when a reporter asked about the suggestion his campaign was backing off some positions in the staunch states-rights book, Perry said: “I haven't backed off anything in my book. So read the book again and get it right.”

He told the Ottumwa crowd that for people who are drawing Social Security or, “like me,” are near eligibility, he wasn't proposing a change in the program. But he said there should be a national conversation about potential changes for others, including raising the age of eligibility and establishing a threshold based on a person's means.

“Does Warren Buffett need to get Social Security? Maybe not,” he said.

Presenting himself as the candidate who can put Americans back to work, Perry listed jobs lost in Iowa “since President Obama took over as president” and said one in eight Iowans is on food stamps.

“To be fair, President Obama inherited a bad economy, but he sure made it worse,” Perry said.

On foreign policy, Perry was asked about Israel and cited a statement by Obama that Israel's borders with a Palestinian state should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps — a position Perry called “throwing Israel under the bus.”

“I'm going to stand with Israel,” he said.

Asked whether he'd consider pre-emptive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, Perry said there are “a lot of different ways to deal with Iran,” including diplomatically and financially. But he added, “I'm never going to take off the table our ability to have a military solution to a country like Iran.”

Perry also was asked to explain his past support for Al Gore, in 1988, when Perry was a Democratic state House member.

“I never met a Republican till I was 25,” said Perry, a reference to Texas' past as a solidly Democratic state from Reconstruction until the Reagan era.

He added that he “made both political parties happy” when he became a Republican in 1989.

In Des Moines, Perry also struck at Obama during a brief news conference. Asked whether he supported the potential Social Security eligibility changes he cited, Perry repeated his support for a “national conversation about how we can save the Social Security program that people expect to have as a retirement program.

“Anybody that is for the status quo ... I'll let the president speak for himself. If he wasn't for the status quo, we'd already be having this conversation.”

He also called Obama “an absolute disaster as a president from the standpoint of our economy.”

Perry's visit — which also included a meeting with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and corn growers — highlighted his emphasis on Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucus.

Erstwhile front-runner Mitt Romney has largely passed over Iowa while emphasizing New Hampshire. Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's win in the straw poll here was overshadowed by Perry's simultaneous jump into the race.

Perry has taken a lead in the polls, has a packed fundraising schedule looming, plans visits to the other early-voting states over the long Labor Day weekend, and soon after will face his first debate with other GOP hopefuls.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Lake Jackson, who came in second in the straw poll, took a dig at Perry's jobs message without naming him at a stop in Winterset.

“Presidents can't create jobs. Government can't create jobs. All they can do is create bureaucrats that interfere with your ability to create jobs,” Paul said to applause from a crowd at the Northside Cafe.

Perry also has said government doesn't create jobs, but at the same time, he's touting Texas' job numbers under his leadership as proof he has what it takes to put America back to work.

He said in Ottumwa that the country needs “someone who understands how to get America working again. And I'm it!”