For several weeks now, it's looked more like a question of when, not if, Gov. Rick Perry will run for president. But as Ben Philpott of KUT News reports, Perry still has a few steps to take before making the big announcement.

Two new political outfits, based in Austin and started by a former legislator who served with and worked for Gov. Rick Perry, will try to rally veterans to the governor's presidential race in Iowa and South Carolina.

The Americans for Rick Perry Super PAC raised $193,000 in the last 10 days of June, according to a July 29 filing with the Federal Election Commission.

Rick Perry placed a distant second to Herman Cain in the Denver Straw Poll this weekend, but the Texas governor — not yet a declared candidate for president — outperformed putative frontrunners Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann.

Gov. Rick Perry, who has at least one eye on the White House, is already beating potential rival Rick Santorum in this quite unofficial contest: book sales at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver. The two were expected to sign books, in the same room, Friday afternoon.

Texas may have two well-known Republican candidates running for president, and some say Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul are "diametrically opposed" to one another. The real battle between them isn't over money. It's over ideas.

As Gov. Rick Perry dances closer and closer to the presidential flame, those Texas Republicans who didn't board the train to Washington in 2000 might get another chance.

Gov. Rick Perry, taking flak from social conservatives, took a step back from his laissez-faire approach to New York’s gay marriage law on Thursday. Now he says it threatens the definition of marriage everywhere, including Texas.

Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday he isn’t worried that a failure to increase the nation’s debt ceiling would trigger an economic catastrophe. He also says that it should be up to the states to decide whether abortion is illegal — or legal.

Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday he isn’t worried that a failure to increase the nation’s debt ceiling would trigger an economic catastrophe. He also says that it should be up to the states to decide whether abortion is illegal — or legal.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said Monday it had preserved certain travel records associated with the cost of providing security to Gov. Rick Perry before 2008, contrary to information it provided on Friday.  

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the analysis suggests Rick Perry did not leave the Democratic Party so much as it left him, although compared to Reagan, Perry was (ideologically) much less of a Democrat to begin with.

State officials said Friday they can’t reveal how much money taxpayers are spending to protect Gov. Rick Perry — and that records of security costs compiled before 2008 have been “purged.”

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Surfside, is the only Texan currently in the race for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, and he recently announced that he would not seek another term in Congress. Why? He wants to concentrate on the presidential contest instead of running for both at the same time as he did in 2008. The congressman, a nationally recognized political figure — he was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in 1988 — talked with the Tribune about the contest, about the other candidates grabbing some of his ideas, and about a potential candidate he's never met.

Americans for Rick Perry, an independent group promoting would-be presidential contender Rick Perry, has suffered a setback in Iowa, but it’s picking up new volunteers in South Carolina. 

On last night's episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert turned his focus to the any-day-now presidential campaign of Gov. Rick Perry — and what God has to do with it.

Gov. Rick Perry made three stops around Austin on Monday. And as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, the governor didn't look like someone who hasn't decided whether he's running for president.

Gov. Rick Perry, in his first question-and-answer session with reporters in weeks, said Texas taxpayers should pick up the expense of his security even if costs shoot up dramatically while he travels around the nation running for president.