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Subscribe to RSSRick Perry thanks his supporters in Iowa and announces he is reassessing his campaign and heading home to Texas.
This story was updated at 1:25a.m. ET
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa -- The Texan is going home.
After a disappointing fifth place finish in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday night, Gov. Rick Perry announced that he will return to his home state to assess the future of a campaign that remained stalled for months despite prolific ad spending and a frenzied eleventh hour bus tour in the Hawkeye State.
"With the voters' decision tonight in Iowa, I decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight's caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race," Perry told several hundred supporters gathered in the West Des Moines hotel that served as the team's nerve center this week.
Perry briefly choked up when reading aloud a letter from a supporter who drove from Texas to Iowa to support him.
Unlike his final Iowa campaign events - when he surrounded himself with loyal endorsers - Perry was joined only by his immediate family on stage as he thanked his supporters.
"You've made every minute of this worth it for ourselves," he told backers. "And with a little prayer and reflection, I'm going to determine the best path forward, but I want to tell you there has been no greater joy in my life than being able to share with the people of Iowa that there is a model to take this country forward and it is in the great state of Texas."
Aides said that Perry discussed the decision with family, senior aide Joe Allbaugh and communications director Ray Sullivan in his hotel suite after the fifth place finish was projected. Perry himself pushed to make the announcement of his return to Texas on stage rather than through a paper statement.
The next step for Perry will be a powwow with family and advisors as well as a data dive by aides into Perry's performance in the Iowa contest.
"It's going to come down to a calculus of what the Iowa results really said beyond the first snapshot, what resources we have available financially and otherwise and how we read South Carolina and the potential there," communications director Ray Sullivan told reporters.
In the waning days of the Iowa race, the campaign hoped that its ground game would propel the candidate to a surprise third place finish or a close fourth place showing. But public polls and internal surveys saw a stubborn lack of momentum despite more than 50 public appearances for the candidate since Dec 14.
In addition to the weak debate performances and embarrassing gaffes that haunted his campaign, the campaign was also plagued by infighting between its old guard Texas loyalists and more recently added political consultants.
A public announcement of Perry's next step will come no earlier than Thursday, Sullivan said.
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Perry is heading back to texas with his tail between his legs...you do have to wonder how someone so unprepared could be elected governor repeatedly...oh wait its teaxs, home of steers, deers and crooked businesses who don't pay their bills ( i added that for my texas customers who don't pay)
Happr trailsssssssss tooooooooooooo youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
It is a real shame that he is coming back to Texas, we thought we were getting rid of him. But bottom line we are stuck with him, and the Presidency sure wasn't the place for him. The state of Texas was paying 400K a Month Security for this Clown to be in the Presidential race. Hopefully, maybe he will Just Fade Away!!!!! The People of Texas and The Whole Country deserve much better.
I am beyond devastated that Rick Perry failed in Iowa. I mean if anyone can identify with the average American it is Rick Perry. Only Rick, with his ability to act and be one with the average American, could stand face to face with Obama and win the presidency. My greatest concern now is, upon his return to Texas, will the vultures of his own party start to circle over him, as though a wounded animal, waiting for him to succumb to the heat and then swoop down and start feasting on his flesh before he has even perished, challenging him for his post as Governor? I certainly hope not.
One great point though, now that Rick is back in Texas, is that he can have Texas formally secede from the US and win the Presidency of Texas!
He can put his Perry rock back in place too.
Perry didn't play bean-bag with Ann Richards or anyone else he competed against. My choice of "against" is deliberate. There are some who compete "with" others, but the present governor of Texas has earned an "against." Any wounding is primarily self-inflicted, so pity for that predatory politician is not easy to have. The Texan GOP power structure may just want to keep him around because, wounds and all, he'll be a lot more compliant to their wishes.
Perry is going back to tex=ass because Americans, even Iowans, know that this country could never survive another idiot from tex=ass as president. It might mean two more religious wars at a trillion each and the embarrassment of watching someone from another country throwing shoes at his fat head on international TV.
Does he remember where Texas is? oops!
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Is your #82 post serious? If Texas does secede, all the Federal dollars flowing in will stop, as will all Federal support activity: everything from USCG to Army to Army Corps of Engineers to USAF to FAA to Johnson Space Center to Federal financial aid to college students to Interstate highways. What are Cornyn et al. going to do? Ron Paul might go back to practicing medicine, but without Medicare and Medicaid, all physicians in the Lone Star Country will find their paying-patient base greatly diminished.
Please -even republicans don't want him back in Texas!!!!!! Make him stay on the campaign traill!!!!!
AND FINALLY........."someday...,you won't have Richard Perry to kick around anymore"....finis
Perry needs to get his ass back to Texas and start figuring out where he is going to live when we stop paying for his 10,000 a month mansion. He is an idiot and we will be glad when we get rid of him.