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Republican presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry outlines his flat tax plan at the ISO Poly Films factory on Oct. 25, 2011 in Gray Court, S.C.

GRAY COURT, S.C. -- It fits, he says, on a postcard.

Against the backdrop of a plastics factory, Gov. Rick Perry held up a postcard-size form to illustrate the simplicity of his new flat-tax based economic plan.

(HERE'S PERRY'S POSTCARD-SIZE TAX FORM.)

The code that Perry is proposing would feature a 20% personal income and corporate tax, the elimination of Social Security and capital gains taxes, and the preservation of popular deductions for mortgage interest and charitable giving. Under the "cut, balance, and grow" plan, tax loopholes for corporations would be phased out while the standard exemption for those earning $500,000 or less would be increased to $12,500.

His economic team believes that those changes, combined with deep spending cuts and entitlement reforms including a gradual increase in the retirement age, will encourage so much growth and save families and corporations so much in compliance costs that the budget could be balanced by 2020.

Perry contrasted the single postcard with a dishwasher-sized stack of paper boxes that he said represents the current maze of regulations. (Under Perry's plan, Americans would still have the option to use the existing tax code over the flat tax.)

Without naming rival Mitt Romney, Perry derided his chief competitor's approach to tax reform, calling it merely a rehash of past proposals.

"Others simply offer microwaved plans with warmed-over reforms based on current ingredients," he said. "Americans, however, aren't aren't searching for a reshuffling of the status quo, which simply empowers the entrenched interests. This is a change election, and I offer a plan that changes the way Washington does business."

Perry: Wall Street regulation was adequate

Perry, who yesterday charged in an interview with CNBC that the president's team does not grasp basic economics, said that his reforms are both bold and realistic.

"We need tax policy that embraces the world as it is, and not what liberal ideologues wish it to be," he said.

Perry is scheduled to travel to Columbia, S.C., later Tuesday to meet with influential South Carolina potential endorsers Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Jim DeMint. He will also hold a press conference to announce the endorsement of State House Speaker Bobby Harrell.

Exactly one month after Rick Perry's disappointing performance in the Florida straw poll, the governor's team in Austin is getting an influx of new talent.

Four veteran GOP operatives are reportedly taking roles with the Perry team amidst faltering poll numbers, just 10 weeks before the Iowa caucuses. 

Pollster Tony Fabrizio (first reported by Politico), strategists Nelson Warfield and Curt Anderson (as first reported by Time) will be joining Team Perry, as will Bush 2000 campaign guru Joe Allbaugh.

Fabrizio, who served as Dole's chief strategist in 1996, more recently worked for Gov. Rick Scott in 2010 -- along with Warfield and Anderson.

A source with knowledge of the campaign tells NBC News that Allbaugh "has been quietly helping for some time" with Perry's strategy.

It's unclear what the campaign additions mean for the existing tight-knit staff of Perry loyalists in Austin, but the beefed-up team sends a signal to donors and potential backers - especially in Rick Scott's home state of Florida and the site of Perry's debate Waterloo -- that the Texas governor is willing to assemble a formidable national campaign. 

One fundraiser for Perry called the move "necessary and encouraging" and said that calls for the campaign to add more veteran professional pols increased after Perry's poor performance in the Presidency 5 events in Orlando in September.  

"Wish it had happened a month ago," the person said.

The news of the staff additions came on the same day as reports that Perry will launch TV ads in Iowa beginning tomorrow. A Perry source confirmed that ads in the state are forthcoming but could not offer details on the timing of the launch.

A spokesman for Perry declined to comment on either the staff changes or the ads, saying that the campaign does not "discuss strategy."

Warfield was Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign spokesman and more recently a consultant to candidate Fred Thompson. Curt Anderson worked as a strategist for Steve Forbes in 1999 and served as the political director of the Republican National Committee under Haley Barbour.

For conservatives who haven't warmed to Mitt Romney the most likely place that a Romney alternate will emerge is Iowa.

But remember, only two of the last five Iowa winners have gone on to become the GOP nominee.

While it is no surprise Steve Forbes endorsed today pro-flat-tax presidential candidate Rick Perry -- whom he helped craft the plan -- it should be noted that Herman Cain was actually a national co-chairman of Forbes’ 1999-2000 presidential campaign.

When Cain’s role was announced in June 1999, he told the Omaha World-Herald it wasn’t an “honorary” position, and that he would be taking an active role in the campaign, including "message refinement, campaign strategy and fund–raising.”

Cain gave speeches for the campaign, and in September of that year Cain told the Christian Science Monitor he was advising Forbes on how to become a more effective communicator.

But even more interesting, check out what Cain told the Christian Science Monitor's Linda Feldmann back then about the public's trend toward embracing style and delivery vs. substance:

From Christian Science Monitor - September 13, 1999:

Cain says he's helped Forbes to loosen up a bit, and also to tailor his speeches better to his audience. Forbes, he says, has learned he doesn't have to pack his entire agenda into every speech.

Still, Cain understands the growing importance of looking good - and he blames the public for this trend, not the candidates.

"Many people are communications lazy," he says. "They really don't want to spend a lot of time listening to the content or the depth as much as they want to look at the style and the delivery."

DES MOINES, Iowa – In a parade of speeches heavy on social issues and punctuated by a notable barb against Herman Cain on abortion policy, six Republican candidates made their presidential pitches to an audience of influential Iowa conservatives Saturday.

All but two of the major White House contenders -  Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman were absent -- appeared at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual fall forum, attended by more than a thousand Republicans in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

Without mentioning the pizza magnate by name, Gov. Rick Perry used his remarks to ding the recently ascendent Herman Cain for a remark suggesting Cain supports a hands-off attitude towards government curtailing of abortion rights.

"It is a liberal canard to say I am personally pro-life, but government should stay out of that decision," Perry said.  "If that is your view, you are not pro-life, you are pro having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too."

Cain, who spoke before Perry, only briefly mentioned abortion in his opening remarks, declaring unequivocally that life is a fundamental right: "No abortions, no exceptions."

The field's only black Republican candidate also recalled growing up in Atlanta riding on segregated buses, but added to thunderous applause that “because of America's ability to change, I stand here today and I own the bus with my picture on the side."

Michele Bachmann also spoke at length about abortion as well as her personal relationship with faith.  “I believe the government must intervene and I stand for a constitutional amendment to protect life from conception to natural death,” she said.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich received one of the most enthusiastic responses of the evening, repeating his oft-used call for Lincoln-Douglass style presidential debates and lambasting "activist" judges who have ruled in favor of abortion rights.

Libertarian champion Ron Paul began to speak after Gingrich and some in the crowd departed.  The Texas congressman recited biblical references and told the crowd the Bible is filled with “dozens of quotations… telling us to have honest weights and honest measures.”

During the question and answer session, a moderator asked him what would he do to prevent “abortion on demand.” Paul responded, “As an OB doctor, I know when life begins. If I do harm to a fetus, I can be sued!”

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, who spoke last, described the family as the building block of recovery from the nation's fiscal woes. "If we don’t have strong families in America, we will not have a strong economy in this country," he said.

Santorum related the emotional story of the death of his newborn son and his struggle with faith afterwards, earning pin-drop silence from a supportive audience. "You want to know why I'm pro-life? Because God showed me if you're faithful, he will be faithful," he said.

Perry, Gingrich, Paul, and Santorum all spent time greeting voters at the Iowa State Fairgrounds before or after their remarks; Bachmann arrived late and Cain declined to spend much time with voters as he was ushered in and out of the room.

Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition President Steve Scheffler told NBC News before the event that the heavy focus on faith and family issues demonstrated social conservatives' eagerness to replace the current administration.

“It is indicative of the fact that this pro-family constituency is engaged and they want to stop the socialist policies of the Obama Administration,” he said. “They are ready to nominate someone who is going to carry the banner and win the election next fall.”

Despite the influence an endorsement from the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition would have, Scheffler said the organization would not choose a candidate. “We are just going to keep their feet to the fire,” he said.

NBC's Carrie Dann

Iowa Rep. Steve King (left) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (right), who is running for president, went pheasant hunting in Iowa Saturday.

MERRILL, Iowa -- Rick Perry often waxes eloquent about his wife Anita as the love of his life, but today in Iowa he disclosed to journalists another "long love affair" that has affected him since he was young.

With guns, that is.

"It was a long love affair with a boy and his gun, that turned into a man and his gun, that turned into a man and his son and his daugher and their guns," an orange-and-khaki-clad Perry said of his relationship with firearms before a pheasant hunting trip in northwestern Iowa.

Perry, who took questions from reporters before the shooting expedition with Iowa Rep. Steve King, called family hunting "part of America" and said that teaching children the safety and the mechanics of firearms is "one of the great American traditions."

The Texas governor also addressed yesterday's announcement by President Obama that all troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by 2011, repeating his accusation that the White House's decision was "a political statement" rather than smart military policy.

"This administration has signaled, telegraphed its intentions all too often and that's just not acceptable," he said.

But Perry declined to offer specifics about how many troops he thinks should remain in Iraq. "Putting a hard number on it without having sat down with the commanders and know what all the implications are for troops is not an appropriate thing to do," he said.

Asked about a testy exchange with Mitt Romney on the issue of illegal immigration during last week's debate, Perry repeated his assertion that Romney was a part of the nation's illegal immigration problem when undocumented individuals worked on his property.

"Mitt stands back and makes statements about criticizing Texas for how they've had to deal with an issue," he said, "[when] the federal government and people like himself are the problem."

Perry next heads to a campaign event in eastern Iowa and then on to a forum in Des Moines, with a busy schedule that means he won't have a chance to see his beloved home team play Iowa State University today.

And he was quick to say who he's rooting for.

"I'm for the Aggies. I don't get confused about who I'm for," he declared to reporters. "I'm not going to be one of those people who roll into Iowa and say, 'Oh I'm for the Cyclones, because I'm runnin' for office. People see through that pretty good."

*** UPDATE *** Andrea Saul, spokesperson for Romney, passes on this response: 

One of the moments from Tuesday's Republican debate that is getting the most attention is when Mitt Romney put his hand on his opponent Rick Perry's shoulder. 

On "Andrea Mitchell Reports" today, Romney campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said that "too much of that is being made of that." He also mentioned that in an earlier debate, Perry also touched Romney.

"At an earlier debate, Perry laid his hands on Mitt Romney," Fehrnstrom said. "Mitt Romney did not take offense at that, and I don't think Rick Perry took offense when Mitt touched him on the shoulder at last night's debate."

That moment came during CNN's debate on Sept. 12, and the tone was significantly different than Tuesday night's debate.

Romney was asked by moderator Wolf Blitzer if Perry deserved any credit for Texas's job creation record. 

"Go ahead and tell him how much credit he deserves," Blitzer said.

Perry smiled, leaned over, and patted Romney on the back to encourage a friendly answer. The other candidates could be heard laughing, and Perry gave a thumbs up. Romney smiled before responding.

"I think Gov. Perry would agree with me that if you're dealt four aces, that doesn't make you necessarily a great poker player," Romney said.

Mr. Las Vegas himself, Wayne Newton, told NBC he came in hoping to support Rick Perry, but the impeccably tanned crooner said he thought the Texas governor's attacks on Mitt Romney were "mean-spirited" -- and that Romney was a "gentleman."

And now he'll back Romney.

Although her husband has served as Texas governor for the past 10 years, Anita Perry has largely stayed out of the political spotlight.

But that changed after Rick Perry announced his presidential bid back in August.

Indeed, her trip last week to South Carolina -- which took her to eight stops in two days -- showed the Texas first lady in several different lights. As a political spouse dealing with the slings and arrows of a national race. As an outspoken surrogate for her husband. And as a woman able to show the softer side of a candidate embroiled in a fierce nomination fight.

The trip was a chance for South Carolina voters to get face time with a member of the Perry family, given that her husband hasn’t been to the state in over a month. And -- probably not by mistake -- all of her public stops were in the Upstate region, home to a majority of the state’s large evangelical population.

Faith takes center stage
At her first stop, Anita Perry had breakfast with professors at North Greenville University, a Southern Baptist school tucked in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The university’s president, Jimmy Epting, encouraged her to address the small group, although Perry later said she had not planned on making remarks.

“I just want you to feel comfortable talking about the Lord here, as well as tell us all about your husband and tell us why we should be voting for him,” Epting said before offering the podium to Perry.

Her impromptu remarks had a heavy dose of religion –- an issue that received more attention in the campaign after a Perry supporter called Mormonism a cult.

“We are being brutalized by our opponents, and our own party. So much of that is, I think they look at him, because of his faith,” she continued.

She also was overcome with emotion when talking about her grandfather, the deacon in a church who, she said, made sure she went to Sunday school every week. Anita Perry had to pause for several seconds in the middle of her story.

“My grandfather still speaks to me today,” she said, smoothing her cardigan to signal her regained composure.

Talking about her emotional moment later in an interview with NBC News, Perry said, “I've not told that story out on the campaign trail before. But we were talking about faith, and Rick and I are very sincere about our faith and our belief in family.

“And I didn’t mean to say that this morning. It just came to me, and it’s a true story,” she continued.

Sticking to the script
Video of Anita Perry’s remarks at North Greenville quickly spread around the Internet -– something the Perry South Carolina team noted throughout the day with a combination of trepidation (over the reaction to her words) and satisfaction (that the trip was getting so much exposure).

She made few off-the-cuff remarks the rest of the trip, sticking largely to her prepared speech, which she carried in a large binder with her name embossed in silver lettering.

She also dialed back her statement that the campaign was being “brutalized.” In the NBC interview, Perry said that criticism from other candidates is “the nature of the beast.”

“I can certainly understand it, if I’d been in the race longer, it would be uncomfortable for someone to come in and take over that lead,” she said. (At the time of the interview, Perry had come in third in the national NBC/WSJ poll, behind Herman Cain and Mitt Romney).

Handlers were also never far from Mrs. Perry’s side, making sure she stayed on message.

During the interview, Perry discussed her husband’s position on illegal immigration, an issue over which he’s received conservative criticismtaken because he supports allowing the children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition to attend state colleges.

She began by expressing empathy for immigrants who are fleeing torture or abuse. “So many of them came for a better opportunity and that’s what America is about."

But the Perry campaign’s South Carolina chairman, Katon Dawson, was quick to interject. 

“In no means has Gov. Perry done anything but be one of the firmest, and most staunch supporters of securing our border and against illegal immigration,” he said, explaining that Mrs. Perry was referring to the tuition issue when she talked about giving illegal immigrants a better opportunity.

An outspoken surrogate
Anita Perry’s prepared remarks pulled no punches when it came to her husband’s opponents.

“He doesn't need a 9-9-9 plan. He doesn't need a 59-point plan!” she said, taking digs, at Herman Cain and Mitt Romney’s jobs proposals while speaking at Cribbs Kitchen in Spartanburg.

Perry also used some of the same one-liners favored by her husband. When asked, at a town hall meeting in Prosperity about his 2nd Amendment beliefs, she responded, “He believes in gun control. You should use both hands.”

At a stop Friday at Dyer’s diner in Pendleton, Perry came under more scrutiny when she blamed her son’s leaving his banking job on new Securities and Exchange Commission rules barring financial advisers from campaigning for candidates if the adviser’s firm has business interests with the candidate’s state.

But while she took flak for that remark, the man to whom she was speaking, David von Schmittou, said he appreciated her comments.

“I was like, whoa. It has touched a lot of people,” he said, referring to the high unemployment rate.

Nurse, dog lover, city girl
While her trip to South Carolina had overtly political stops, she was also there to introduce herself to voters. The holder of a masters’ degree in nursing, Anita Perry visited with nursing students at Clemson University, Bob Jones University, and Greenville Memorial Hospital.

At Bob Jones University, Perry’s eyes lit up as she told students that getting her degree in nursing was “one of the best decisions I ever made in my life -- other than marrying my husband.”

Perry also seemed to share her husband’s love of dogs. As she stopped at a well-known Republican family’s home between events, she became excited when she saw two dogs in the backyard, and played with them before going inside.

And while visiting Greenville Hospital, she stopped to ask a receptionist the name of her dog, whose picture was on her desk.

“What’s your puppy’s name?” she asked, to which the receptionist responded, “Dixie Belle.”

“Dixie Belle!” Anita exclaimed. “We’ve got a Belle,” she added, referring to her son Griffin’s dog Belle, who is the mother of Gov. Perry’s black Labrador, Rory, according to ABC News.

Throughout the trip, Perry wielded what is the strongest card for a political wife: the ability to shed a personal light on her husband, the candidate.

“He grew up in a part of a community, not a town. It had a Baptist church on one end, and a Methodist church on the other end,” she said at Dyer’s diner. “I grew up like 10 miles up the road; he said I was a city girl. I had 42-hundred in my town,” she said as patrons chuckled.

“What we learned growing up in rural Texas, we learned about family, we learned about faith, we learned about what we thought was important in life. That you took care of each other,” she added.

And she vouched for her husband.

“I take a deep breath and really hope that people will give him a fair listening; an opportunity to listen to what he has to say,” she said. “I’m married to the man. I’ve known him since I was eight years old. He’s a good man, he’s principled, he makes tough decisions, he’s a leader, so I just want everybody to give a fair look at him.” 

PERRY, Iowa -- In an event Saturday billed as the “Bachmann Takes it to Perry Rally,” Michele Bachmann took her anti-illegal immigration message to the small town just outside Des Moines that carries the last name of her GOP opponent, Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

But Bachmann only mentioned Gov. Perry by name once, and it came during the question-and-answer period. Instead, she focused on detailing the case for a major initiative Perry opposes: building a fence along the United State's border with Mexico. 

“I will secure that border,” Bachmann said inside the ballroom at the historic Hotel Pattee. “That will be job No. 1.  And it will be every mile; it will be every yard; it will be every foot, because the portion that you fail to secure will be the highway into the United States.”

The event marked the introduction of a new advocacy group exerting pressure on GOP presidential candidates to sign a pledge to secure the border. Bachmann’s signature on Americans for Securing the Border pledge binds her to completing a fence along the Southern border by the end of her first year in office. She is the first candidate in the Republican field to sign it.

“The politicians every election cycle always pay lip service to securing the border but nothing ever gets done. So we believe it’s time to have a pledge,” Americans for Securing the Border Chairman Van Hipp told NBC News. “We have issued the challenge to all the major presidential candidates and Michele Bachmann is the first one to step up to the plate.”

The Minnesota Congresswoman has staked her candidacy, at least in part, on the message of a fiscal discipline -- and as she made the case for the fence this afternoon, she framed it in fiscal terms. 

“I want to talk to you right now a little bit about some of those very real costs that come across along with illegal immigration,” Bachmann told the crowd of roughly 75 people. “It’s actually $113 billion a year,” she said, citing research by a conservative non-profit group, Federation for American Immigration Reform. “That’s the cost of illegal immigration.”

Illegal immigration has been a continued point of contention in the 2012 presidential race, specifically the DREAM Act, which, in Texas, allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public universities. While Bachmann did not mention the Texas governor’s name, she harshly criticized Perry for the Texas law.

“In 2009 in Texas, there were 12,138 students that benefited from that,” she said. “That cost the taxpayers of Texas $25.9 million.”

Bachmann’s message did not please everyone in the room. After interrupting the congresswoman mid-speech, Eddie Diaz, a 32-year-old Perry resident and first-generation Iowan, was given the first question following her prepared remarks. 

Diaz and Bachmann went back and forth on arguably the most sensitive element of the whole immigration debate -- the fate of the children of illegal immigrants.

“Under our system of government you cannot punish the children for the actions of their parents,” Diaz forcefully told Bachmann. The congresswoman countered that laws like these only encourage more illegal immigration.

Following the “Bachmann Takes it to Perry Rally,” the Perry campaign responded, touting Perry’s 10 years experience as governor of a border state.

“Governor Perry has been hard at work at this,” Perry’s Iowa Chair, Bob Haus, said in a statement. “Iowans will trust someone who's actually done the work to secure our border."

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Anita Perry said today that she could sympathize with unemployed people because her son Griffin had to resign his job at a bank in order to campaign for his father, Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Mrs. Perry’s words came in response to David Von Schmittou, 45, who said he had lost a high-paying job during the recession and now worked odd jobs as a handyman to make ends meet.

“I’m just sympathizing. Let me tell you. Our son has resigned his job because of the federal regulations Washington has put on us,” she said. “He resigned his job two weeks ago. Because he can’t go out and campaign for his father because of SEC regulations. He’s got a wife; he’s got a job. He’s trying to start up a business. So I empathize with you."

New “pay-to-play” rules, enacted in July of 2010, prohibit financial advisors from “providing advisory services for compensation,” directly or through investments, “for two years, if the adviser or certain of its executives or employees make a political contribution to an elected official who is in a position to influence the selection of the adviser.”

According to the Perry campaign, Griffin’s position as a Deutsche Bank advisor would have banned the bank from “certain business in the state of Texas” had he been simultaneously working for his father’s campaign.

Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan confirmed that Griffin resigned from the bank a few weeks ago “ as a result of new Obama Administration policy.”

“It was impossible for him to be personally active in his father’s presidential campaign and remain employed at the bank,” Sullivan said in an email.

This isn’t the first time Griffin Perry’s employment at a financial firm has come under scrutiny.

In 2007, he was hired by UBS, one of two firms who were at the time consulting Perry’s office over the possible sale of the Texas lottery. At the time, Griffin was hired to work in the bank’s Dallas office, UBS and Morgan Stanley were both providing advice to the governor’s office, but neither had been hired to broker the sale, according to an AP report at the time

WEST MIFFLIN, PA -- Seeking to refocus his campaign after a month of controversies and shaky debate performances, Texas Gov. Rick Perry visited a cavernous steel plant outside of Pittsburgh Friday to unveil his plan for job creation through reform of the energy industry.

Speaking here at U.S. Steel's Irvin plant, Perry said that his proposal -- which would open protected land for oil and natural gas production as well as lift federal regulations on the energy sector -- will create 1.2 million jobs.

"Today, I offer a plan that will create more than a million good American jobs across every sector of the economy and enhance our national security. And the best news is it can be set in motion in my first 100 days," he told a crowd of hard-hat-wearing steelworkers.

The lands opened for new energy exploration under Perry's plan would include the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, although the governor noted that states should have input in which parts of their land are preserved from new drilling. His proposal would also undo the Environmental Protection Agency's "draconian" authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and it would eliminate federal subsidies for industry sectors such as ethanol and oil and gas production.

Those changes, he said, would "revitalize American manufacturing" and have ripple effects throughout the rest of the US economy as well.

The slogan of the rollout: "Make what Americans buy. Buy what Americans make. And sell it to the world."

Perry says that his plan, which would rely on executive orders and other action directly from the White House for its implementation, would avoid the procedural gridlock of passage through Congress. And he argues that advancements in research and development, as well as market incentives, would keep the enhanced energy production from harming the global environment. 

"I do not accept the premise, I do not accept the choice, that we must pick between energy and the environment."

In his remarks, Perry had harsh words for environmental "activists" who have lobbied the White House to limit new energy production. 

"President Obama would keep us more dependent on hostile sources of foreign energy, while my plan would make us more secure by tapping America's true energy potential," Perry said. "His energy policies are driven by the concerns of activists in his party. My policies are driven by the concerns of American workers without jobs."

"Creating jobs in America is as simple as changing presidents," he added.

The steel plant speech was the first in a series of policy proposals that Perry is expected to unveil in the coming weeks. The next stage of the rollout will be an address on taxes and the deficit, advisers said.