Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry says he was "a little arrogant" in his disastrous 2012 presidential bid, and won't make that mistake again if he runs in 2016.
In a sit-down at Austin's Bert's Bar-B-Q with John Harwood of CNBC – the reporter who pressed the governor in a debate after he couldn't remember the third federal agency he'd vowed to eliminate – Perry confessed he simply wasn't ready for a grueling national campaign.
Story continues below video.
"One of the errors that I made was in not being prepared," he said. "You know, I was a little arrogant and that had as much to do with my demise as a candidate as forgetting a third agency of government."
But that was then.
"I spent the last 22 or 23 months in preparation to run for the presidency," he declared, telling Harwood he’d decide by May or June if he'll go down the road to the White House again.
In his previous bid, Perry came late to the game for the Republican nominating process, tossing his hat in the ring when Iowa was already holding its first-in-the-nation caucuses,
The Hill notes.
And though he rose to the top of the GOP field, mistakes in the fall and winter led him to withdraw in early 2012. Among the most ridiculed gaffes came in the CNBC-sponsored debate in 2011, when he had his infamous
"oops" moment.
"I suspect that it happens to everyone, I’m just not sure that there are four million people watching," Perry said. "I’ve had a lot of fun with it subsequently. You have just made some really good 'Saturday Night Live' material."
He told Harwood the embarrassing moment makes "great political satire and comedy," but it won't be in his "obituary."
Perry's got a tough fight ahead should he decide to run;
a CNN-ORC poll released in late November showed him in 10th place among GOP possible candidates, with only 4 percent support from Republicans.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.