Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that if he runs for president next year, he'll be much better prepared than he was in 2012.
In an interview broadcast on Fox News'
"Hannity" program, Perry said he was late in entering the 2012 race and had undergone back surgery about a month and a half before announcing his candidacy.
"I didn't do the preparation work prior to 2011 that I should have done, and I started in late 2012 with a very intensive program of both domestic policy, of foreign policy, of our monetary policy," Perry said. "So, when I stand on the stage and debate this next time, you're going to see a person who is very, very well-prepared and able to talk across the board about the issues that the president of the United States is going to have to deal with," he said.
Perry's 2012 campaign was marred by a series of gaffes, most notably one that occurred at a November 2011 debate when he forgot the name of the third federal agency he planned to shut down,
The Washington Times reported.
Perry, who became governor of Texas in December 2000, left office last week after more than 14 years in the governor's mansion.
He said he will announce a decision on running for president by May or June.
The governor said he is on the "right side" of an abuse of power case against him which a Texas state judge refused to dismiss last week.
A
grand jury indicted Perry in August on charges that he improperly threatened to veto funding for a prosecutorial unit headed by Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg.
Perry had said he would veto state funding for the unit if Lehmberg did not resign following a 2013 arrest and an eventual jail sentence for drunken driving.
When she refused, Perry cast his veto. He is charged with abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant, which carry maximum prison sentences of 99 years and 10 years, respectively,
according to The Wall Street Journal.
In November, a bipartisan group of law professors, former judges and other attorneys including Harvard law School professor Alan Dershowitz filed a brief calling for the charges against Perry to be dismissed. They said that "to turn political disagreements into criminal prosecution is disturbing."
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