http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/271022.htmlPerry endorses Giuliani
By JOHN MORITZ
jmoritz@star-telegram.com
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS / KEVIN WOLF
Texas Gov. Rick Perry addresses The Club for Growth at its Fall Conference in Washington on Wednesday. Perry has endorsed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential race. Perry said he likes Giuliani's fiscal conservatism and that the nation needs a leader who understands "the stifling effect" of raising taxes.
AUSTIN -- Saying he got a look-in-the-eye promise that Rudy Giuliani would appoint "strict constructionist" judges to the U.S. Supreme Court, conservative Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday made official his endorsement of the former New York mayor for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
"The mayor knows how to lead, he knows how to get results, and he knows how to win," Perry told Texas reporters during a telephone news conference with Giuliani from Washington, D.C.
Perry said he could overlook Giuliani's support for abortion rights and for same-sex civil unions but made clear that he and the former mayor would have some differences. The governor also closed the door on a possible vice presidential run, even though Giuliani said Perry was sure to be on almost every GOP candidate's short list of potential running mates.
The perceived ability to defeat Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton appeared to trump all other considerations in Perry's decision.
Perry said there was a "vast chasm of difference" between the outlooks of Clinton and Giuliani and that the ex-mayor ran New York City as "an old-time conservative" by cutting government spending and battling crime.
One Texas conservative activist who has not decided whom to support next year called Perry's decision a smart move.
"It is really good news for Rudy Giuliani," said Peggy Venable, who heads the Texas office of the conservative Americans For Prosperity. "Gov. Perry has proven himself to be a not only a fiscal conservative, but a personal conservative as well."
For only the second time in a generation, no Texan appears poised to win a spot on the national GOP ticket. And many Texas Republican leaders are playing a wait-and-see approach to the 2008 presidential campaign.
Perry said he "cogitated" over the decision on who he would back for six months. During that time, he said he had several face-to-face meetings with Giuliani, who assured him that he would not appoint activist federal judges, which is conservative code for judges who would either hold the line on expanding abortion rights or vote to overturn the 1973 decision that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy.
Giuliani, who advocated controls on gun ownership as mayor, said that he and Perry were not too far apart on the Second Amendment issues. Perry described himself as a staunch backer of the rights of law-abiding citizens to cary arms.
"I support the Second Amendment," Giuliani said. "It gives you the right to bear and carry arms."
But he said he would not support a national law to give citizens the right to carry concealed handguns because such matters should be decided by the individual states, and in some cases by individual local governments.
Perry's decision to align himself with Giuliani, who is leading the crowded GOP field in several national polls is considered a major plumb for the New Yorker. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Attorney General Greg Abbott are co-chairman of former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson's presidential bid, but neither has the clout that Perry has amassed since first winning statewide office in 1990.
Venable, who described herself as a fiscal and social conservative, said she has not decided which candidate she will support next year. But she said Perry's decision to board the Giuliani bus is a smart move.
"A lot of us in the conservative movement are of the mind that which ever candidate can beat Hillary Clinton is who we should go with," she said.
Guiliani is not without Texas ties in his own right. He is a partner in the blue-chip Houston-based law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani, formerly Bracewell & Patterson. And he was an early supporter of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2000.
Perry's endorsement comes nearly eight years to the day that Giuliani though his support to Bush.
John Moritz reports from the Star-Telegram Austin Bureau, 512-476-4294.
I am speechless.
