Former Texas Governor Rick Perry announced on Thursday he will seek the Republican presidential nomination again in 2016, seeking redemption for a fumbled White House bid in 2012 and adding to a crowded field of conservative candidates.
He announced the campaign launch on his website www.rickperry.org and has scheduled an event in Dallas for later on Thursday.
"We need a president who provides leadership that transcends the petty partisanship that we've seen in the last few years," Perry said in a video on his web site. "We don't have to accept the weakness abroad that we're seeing. We don't have to accept the slow recovery economically that we see here at home."
The longest-serving governor in the history of Texas, Perry has worked to overhaul his image since his 2012 candidacy fell apart in an embarrassing debate performance that became infamous as his "Oops moment."
Perry has presented himself since then as a more thoughtful, policy-oriented candidate with a solid record of job creation. He told The Washington Post as he left office after 14 years last December that he would be “a substantially different, versed candidate” if he ran in 2016.
Wearing his thick-framed glasses, Perry used an agriculture summit in the early voting state of Iowa in March to try to showcase his grasp of foreign policy, one of his weak points the last time around.