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AUSTIN, Texas, June 24 (UPI) -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry has decided to run for president and will join the GOP primary race before the Iowa Straw Poll, The Wall Street Journal reported. Perry's office had no comment. A longtime Republican adviser told Fox News Channel the odds of a Perry run for the Republican nomination are about 50-50.
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Perry might make the campaign announcement around the time of a Christian national "Call to Prayer" meeting he is to host Aug. 6 at Houston's 71,500-seat Reliant Stadium
The Ames (Iowa) Straw Poll is scheduled for Aug. 13.
The Perry-camp thinking is that the apparent front-runner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, "does not reflect the Republican Party," a GOP campaign veteran whose name was not reported told the Journal, saying Romney is therefore vulnerable to a credible challenge from the right.
Perry was in San Antonio Thursday touting his record of appointing Hispanics at a convention of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. He did not mention presidential politics, KPRC-TV, Houston, reported.
Latinos are expected to vote in record numbers in next year's presidential election, with 12.2 million Hispanic voters projected to cast ballots, up from 9.7 million who voted in the 2008 election that sent Barack Obama to the White House, and 7.6 million who voted in 2004, a Latino association study released Thursday indicated.
Perry, 61 -- who became governor in December 2000 when George W. Bush resigned to become president -- told Fox News last week that for the first time he was considering a White House run.
When ask what changed, Perry said his wife Anita and his supporters asked him "to give this a second thought" because "our country is in trouble."
Perry told the Republican Leadership Conference, a southern political event held in New Orleans this month, he was saddened "when sometimes my fellow Republicans duck and cover in the face of pressure from the left. Our party cannot be all things to all people."
