Outgoing Texas governor and presumed 2016 Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry isn’t worried about his perceived lack of book smarts because that’s not, he says, what a presidential campaign is about.
“Running for the presidency’s not an IQ test,” Perry said in an interview with NBC News. “It is a test of an individual’s resolve. It’s a test of an individual’s philosophy. It’s a test of an individual’s life’s experiences.”
“And I think Americans are really ready for a leader that will give them a great hope about the future,” he continued.
Perry also insisted that he had learned from his 2012 presidential bid with its stunning rise and equally spectacular fall.
“I think, over the course of the last two years, people realize that what they saw in 2011 is certainly not the person they’re looking at at 2013, 2014, 2015,” Perry told NBC News.
