Texas Governor Rick Perry

Rick Perry has presided over Texas for three terms-nearly eleven years-and during that time the Texas economy has demonstrated a robust growth which is remarkable in view of the simultaneous decline of the national economy. According to a July 2011 report issued by Texas A&M University, Texas added “225,200 nonfarm jobs from June 2010 to June 2011, an annual growth rate of 2.2 percent compared with 0.9 percent for the United States. The state’s private sector added 251,900 jobs, an annual growth rate of 3 percent compared with 1.7 percent for the nation’s private sector.” Seasonably adjusted unemployment rates under Governor Perry are more than a full percentage point lower than the national rates.

Given the nation’s focus on jobs, those numbers should be a powerful asset for Governor Perry, both at the primaries and in a possible campaign against President Obama.

According to the AP article at the link above, Perry’s Presidential bid “announcement was set for 1 p.m. EDT at a meeting of conservative activists in South Carolina, only a few hours before the release of results from a straw poll in Iowa, the nation’s first caucus state.”