Rick Perry won't run for governor again, but he can still sign his name. We hear.
So Rick Perry just staged the most self-indulgent "I'm not running for reelection" event ever. It took him about fifteen minutes of boasting about his record as the longest-serving governor in the nation (he took office when Clinton was still president) before he finally got around to pointing out that he wasn't going to seek a fourth term in office, but the event had all the trappings of a presidential campaign announcement speech, with one problem: It's 2013.
Still, Perry wanted to make sure that everybody who was watching picked up on the obvious: That he continues to harbor ambitions for the White House. So immediately after ruling out a 2014 reelection bid, he said this:
Any future considerations will be announced in due time.
In other words, today Rick Perry essentially announced he would be announcing whether or not he's going to run for president. Which means he's going to run, or to put it another way:
Perry giving up "greatest job in American politics" to get in touch with his inner Iowan.
— @ed_kilgore
Fun times are ahead.