UPDATE: DeMint and event organizers told CNN Perry will be unable to participate in the event remotely.
Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry is returning home to handle the growing threat of wildfires there, but his campaign says he is still trying to make arrangements to participate remotely in Sen. Jim DeMint's presidential forum in South Carolina.
"It is my understanding that he has tried to speak with Sen. DeMint and we are trying to make arrangements to do this from Austin," Katon Dawson, Perry's South Carolina campaign chairman, told CNN.
Perry spoke in South Carolina on Monday morning at a town hall hosted by Rep. Tim Scott but had to cancel his appearance at the afternoon DeMint forum because of the fire situation in Texas.
"Rick Perry is certainly the governor of Texas first and foremost and a candidate for president second," Dawson said. "The circumstances surrounding this impending catastrophic event in Texas have changed and Gov. Perry is returning to Texas."
From CNN Politics
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Is it me or does Rick Perry always look like he is up to no good? He reminds me of Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges, just not as jovial. I trust him least of all.
Why? What´s he going to do, personally pee on the fire to set it out?
Silly show business. If you can´t create a organization that can handle these kind of events, without you having to micromanage it, then you have no business being in a leadership position. You´ve just shown yourself as a ineffective leader!
No worries about the Texas fires. I'm sure Parry will propose paying for fighting the fires and rebuilding after by laying off public employees, such as firefighters ... OOPS!
Maybe now would be a good time for Parry to secede Texas from the United States. We can't afford to pay for fighting their fires ...
Perry doesn't have to run away. He can stay in SC and pray to his Invisible Sky Friend to stop the wild fires, just like he asked his Invisible Sky Friend last month to end the Texas drought. Oh yea, expecting a celestial body to grant wishes doesn't actually work in the real world. Neither does Perry. Perry: Bad for Texas. Worse for America.
The tea bagger party is the joke, but Perry is the punch line. What a tool.
A photo op? First responders are doing their jobs and dont need him here!
Dadgummit! we got these wild fires going on for three months, and I have to get back to pray, and then blame President Obama.
Rick Perry looks tired and worn-out...not all together here or there.!!!!!!!
Little 'King Maker' Jimmy DeMint may not be the Don of the tea bagger mafia after all.
@DENNA
He looks like he's up to no good.
This Governor will use every trick on the book to avoid public scrutiny. Here in Texas we are suffering after his over 10yrs rein. Unemployment is 8.4% as of July results. It is likely to go higher this month as fired teachers and other government officials clock up. Education is way under funded. We are ranked 46th in the Union. Our Healthcare system/coverage is ranked 44th in the Union. Our infractructure is decayed. About 127 bridges accross the state either need repair or replacement.
Meanwhile, this Governor passes laws to legalise guns in colleges and tax relieve to businesses. Fine, if tax holindays creates jobs, why is unemployment going up at the rate of .3% every month? By next May, this State will be $27 Billion in the tank as per State budget Comptroller. No more stimulus to cover this deficit like he did last financial year when he took $2Billion in stimulus.
Deputy Governor is running for State Senate just as the Governor is running for President. Am I wrong to assume that they are jumping this fast sinking boat?
It's about time.
This morning, in SC, Perry said he'd appoint pro-business administrators to the EPA and "they wouldn't know what hit them". Apparently Perry forgot, or never knew, what this country was like before the EPA: The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland would regularly catch on fire (look it up), the Great Lakes were often closed to swimming or fishing because of the filthy water, you could barely see a quarter of mile ahead driving around any large city, the air was yellowish-gray and acrid in all the cities, people dumped gasoline and oil on the ground or on the streets which ran into our water supplies, DDT was sprayed along all the city streets to kill mosquitoes, etc. China doesn't have an EPA and they wear masks to filter their air, and the filth comes across the Pacific and lands on San Francisco. (Look that up, too.) Perry is a tool of the billionaires and huge corporations who care nothing about the environment, they can just fly to some island somewhere when it gets too hard to breathe here.
So - he wants to be where his face can't be seen when his advisors "feed" him the appropriate answers to the bagger questions.
What a jerk-off. It's not like he's gonna be holding a fire hose to put out fires. He wouldn't want to risk getting that pretty hair all messed up. Needs to be in his $10,000 per month rental home.
No DENNA, it is not you. So get use to it because this is what you get with the perry, LOL!
@Denna, you're right Shemp Howard. I thought he looks familiar.
Do you guys hear that "giant sucking noise" ........it is being made from 2 sources; the oxygen leaving the room when Perry entered, & the gurgling from NO hope & change! Obambi can do ONLY one thing well.......CAMPAIGN! He really missed his
calling, he should have been a Televangelist!
"Is it me or does Rick Perry always look like he is up to no good?"
----–
It's you.
"...growing threat.." – "..impending catastrophic event.."???????????????????????????
********************
Two dead, 400 homes lost, 17,000 acres burned – I would say the "catastrophic event" has arrived and the "threat" is
not growing the actual fires are growing.
Yet, he wants to dally in the "kingmakers" forum – he should have stayed there and shot his water gun from
S.C. for all the good he will do here.
Perry does not have to grovel. He knows that he has the Tea Party vote. Tea Partiers would not support Romney, who is a conservative in name only, and the same people who despise the first black president would not vote for a female president either.
Let's see. So far, Perry is on top of the polls among likely Republican voters in all the early primary and caucus states. Does that mean his presence could be a thorn in Senator DeMint's side, as he was not blessed by the self-proclaimed champion of the ultra-right? C'mon, Jimmy. Ricky boy is a secessionist after your own heart. How can you not love him?