Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) said Wednesday he overestimated his political skills in 2012 and won’t make the same mistake again if he runs in 2016.
{mosads}In an interview with John Harwood of CNBC, the reporter who pressed Perry at a 2011 debate that led to the infamous “oops” moment, Perry admitted that he wasn’t ready for the rigors of a national campaign.
“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.”
Perry said he doesn’t intend to make that mistake again if he runs in 2016.
“I spent the last 22 or 23 months in preparation to run for the presidency,” he said.
The Texas governor said he’d decide by May or June 2015 if he intends to run again.
Perry entered late in the 2012 Republican nominating process, announcing his candidacy when voters in Iowa were already casting ballots for their caucuses.
He was a cash-raising machine and immediately shot to the top of a crowded GOP field, but a few gaffe-laden months in the fall and winter led him to withdraw from the contest in early 2012.
Perry has kept a sense of humor about the moment in the 2011 debate where he couldn’t remember the third agency of the government he had vowed to eliminate.
“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 said it makes for “great political satire and comedy,” but it won’t be in his “obituary.”
Polls indicate Perry would have a hard time breaking through what’s expected to be a crowded field of candidates in 2016. A CNN-ORC poll released in late November showed Perry in 10th place, with only 4 percent support from Republicans.