Rick Perry evidently is running for president and is on the campaign trail in Iowa for the 2016 GOP nomination. According to the Des Moines Register, he is getting a good response.

An animated Rick Perry yanked the microphone from the podium and paced the stage, leaning into his words as told Iowans tonight that he knows how to start getting the country "back on track."

A guy who in the past didn't seem like he could run for a governor's office much less the Oval Office seemed like a different candidate, Iowans said, after Perry talked about "prosperity and hope and freedom," as well as a favorite topic of his lately, immigration reform.

"We know how to secure the border," said Perry, the governor of Texas, his voice rising from quiet solemnity to a loud command, "and if the federal government will not do its duty, then I will suggest to you that the state of Texas will."

That remark brought the audience of about 200 of northwest Iowa Republicans to their feet for an extended standing ovation. And the room was buzzing after the 16-minute speech at the dinner, a fundraiser for nine county Republican parties.

"He seems to have matured or changed a little bit. He seemed to have more fire, a lot more motivation," Bud Douglas, a 71-year-old loan agent and the chairman of the Humboldt County Republican Party, told The Des Moines Register.

Perry’s forgetting the third cabinet agency he would close during a GOP presidential debate in 2012 seems to be forgiven. After all, he was on painkillers following surgery. The impression that he was doofus seems to be fading as well. The thick black frame glasses he now wears help. Amazing as it seems, people really do associate glasses with intelligence.

Richard Baehr comments:

He is running for sure.  No one loses  the bug after one defeat for the nomination.  

But this makes it harder for Cruz:  they split Texas GOP money.  

This is actually similar for Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. They could eliminate each other. There is the same problem for Paul Ryan and Scott Walker.