In perhaps his most reflective and personal remarks as a Republican presidential candidate, Perry never once said the word he utters just about everywhere else: “jobs.” His 20-minute speech was shorn of policy prescriptions and denouncements of President Obama.
Instead, the evangelical Christian governor spoke the language of the movement with ease. He talked about the many nights in his 20s he spent pondering his purpose, “wondering what to do with this one life among the billions that were on the planet,” but knowing that God’s answers would be revealed to him in due time.
Perry mused about his personal failings: not realizing his dream of becoming a veterinarian because he flunked organic chemistry, being ordered to do push-ups as a college cadet when his superiors in morning inspections discovered insufficiently shined shoes, straying from his faith and being “lost” as a young Air Force pilot overseas.
“He who knows the number of drops in the ocean, he counts the sands in the desert, he knows you by name. . . . He doesn’t require perfect people to execute his perfect plan,” Perry said before an estimated 13,000 students and faculty members who filled the basketball arena here for their thrice-weekly convocation.
Then, invoking Moses and David of Scripture, he added: “God uses broken people to reach a broken world. The mistakes of yesterday say nothing about the possibilities of tomorrow.”
Recent past presidents spoke comfortably about their faith, including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. Bush shared a narrative of his religious conversion — that he went on a walk with the Rev. Billy Graham, joined a Bible study group and overcame his alcoholism.
“Rick Perry’s a more overt, less subtle guy than George W. Bush, and he is going to be more overt in his policy statements and his statements about his faith,” said Richard Land, a longtime leader of the Southern Baptist Convention who has spoken with Perry about his faith. “He talks about his faith in terms that evangelicals will find completely identifiable.”
Before he began his campaign in August, Perry drew 30,000 people to a revival prayer session at a Houston stadium. Behind the scenes, he has been courting evangelical leaders, including at a recent retreat on a remote Texas ranch. But it remained unclear how directly he would discuss his evangelism in public.
He answered that question on Wednesday.
“This is one of his early attempts to say: ‘This is who I am,’ ” said Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelicals in Civic Life program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
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