The first son of Texas is out to make the case that his father, Gov. Rick Perry, should be the next President of the United States.
Griffin Perry, the elder of the governor’s two children and a 2006 Vanderbilt graduate, left his job at Deutsche Bank to join his father’s campaign at the beginning of October.
In an interview with The Daily Caller, Perry explained that his role in the campaign has largely been as a surrogate for his father — meeting people and attending events that his father and mother are unable make.
According to Perry, he never thought his father would run for president.
“It’s been pretty wild. It’s something that — even though my dad’s been in the political arena for 20 plus years — it’s something that you never expect to happen,” he said. “And the way the stars aligned to allow him to enter the race and be a top tier candidate is pretty fascinating and its a big ballgame.”
Indeed, in the months and weeks leading up to Perry’s announcement there was a great deal of chatter indicating that the Texan disliked Washington and hesitated to run. The younger Perry said that it was his mother, Anita Perry, who finally convinced the governor to run.
“What ended up happening was as the field of candidates started coming out, my mom specifically was not very comfortable with the field and believed that dad was the best candidate out there with the best record and told him, ‘you know, you need to get out of your comfort zone and get off the sidelines and get in,'” he said. “It’s as I told some people, Ronald Reagan himself could have come back from the grave and told Dad to run, but it wouldn’t have mattered had my mother not been on board.”
When asked how he felt about how the media has treated his father, Perry was measured, saying that while he felt some debate criticisms were overly negative and the media ignored the positive parts of his father’s performances, he understands that it is all politics. (RELATED: Name drop: Perry tries to harness Limbaugh, Levin star power in radio ad)
“He’s running for President of the United States,” Perry said. “It is the most powerful, the most important job in the world and with that you expect scrutiny. Now I think some of it has been slightly unfair and a little bit of stretch.”
When pressed on what he thought has been unfair, Perry described articles that use unnamed sources and fail to give the public a total picture — presumably alluding to the controversy surround the name of the family’s old hunting land.
“When you go dig up articles about — it’s similar to what some other candidates go through — you’re using all anonymous sources and there is no real background to the story even when family is doing stuff right,” he said.
Perry added that one of the most important things he learned from his father growing up was the importance of hard work.
“Honesty, ethics, personal responsibility and working very hard. If you are out working harder than everybody else, you are going to get lucky,” he said. “As long as you are working hard good things generally tend to happen.”
And Perry believes that his father’s hard work has provided him a record that could one day land the in the Oval Office.
“I believe that my father’s qualifications as the chief executive of the state of Texas are of the highest standard. Find me another candidate in the last 20 years that has a record as good as him,” he said. “I’ll put it up against anybody’s.”