For the record, I have been referring to far right clueless TX governors running for president as "all hat and no cattle" since at least 2004.

We can sit here and pretend those things never happened if you like, but Perrys use of "we" and "do" in IA were clear enough, and renouncing the Social Security position in a book he published just a year ago was merely bad timing. Perry is far right unless friends, family and/or campaign donors pay him to look the other way on publicly funded toll roads or mandatory vaccinations. It says something fairly disgusting about American politics that his perceived lack of partisanship rather than his graft is destroying his presidential chances (though, OTOH, they were never great in the first place.) Anyone who accuses Mitt Romney of flipflopping only to have the charge boomerang is a pathetic candidate, but Perrys appeal was always limited to fellow Tea Party rightwing radicals; when those outside TX became as aware of his mercenary abandonment as those within TX already were, his presidential campaign imploded amid stammering and bluster. While I am sure that, if offered enough money, Perry would endorse socialized medicine, publicly funded abortions or a federal program to give every welfare queen a Rolls, absent such a bribe he remains adamantly far right.