. >>> this afternoon, perry's spokesperson ray sullivan, not the ray sullivan i went to high school with? no. ok. ray sullivan blasted the ad, issuing a statement that reads, in part, congresswoman bachmann's front-group ad is patently and provably false. joining me now, mark mckinnon, a republican adviser for the nolabels.org. you know texas politics as well as anyone we can get on the show, especially texas republican politics. what do you make of the surge of rick perry? >> entirely predictable in my view. the only thing that surprised me a year ago is he wasn't in the race already. as i looked at the field and where all of the energy in the republican party was, it just seemed a complete natural for rick perry. so the fact he has taken off like he has is not a surprise to me at all. i have watched rick perry for 20 years or more. and the notion that somebody is going to attack him for not being conservative enough, that dog ain't going to hunt, i guarantee you. people make a lot about the fact that perry was a democrat. well, 20 years ago, texas was a two-party state. but it was -- y

ray sullivan and eric ferinstrom join us. austin and boston. ray sullivan, let me start with you and get your reaction to chris christie's apparent still remaining flirtation with the campaign. >> governor christie is an impressive guy and impressive governor. we are in the arena, however. the governor's continuing to crisscross the country talking about jobs. we're spending a lot of time this week highlighting governor romney's long record of flip-flops, and we're continuing to build our campaign infrastructure, endorsements in new hampshire and iowa and across the board. of course fund-raising deadline rapidly approaching. >> ray, are you at all concerned, though, that this latest uptick in interest by big republican donors is a direct reaction to disappointment in governor perry's debate performances? >> not at all. we're continuing to ground -- to blow through this time, to continue to build our campaign and infrastructure. you're going to have strong points, strong weeks, weak weeks in a campaign. the key is to power through, to continue t

ray sullivan is communications director for the perry campaign. he joins me now. in from austin last night, ray, how about just giving us an update on what you can tell us about the wildfire situation. >> the weather is cooperating. that's perhaps the most important thing. the backdrop fire, they found two bodies overnight. our focus is on getting that under control and getting the folks on the ground and the people in shelters taken care of. the temperatures have cooled and we're optimistic that the firefighters are doing a great job in getting a handle on those fireis. >> want to shift gears a little bit here and governor perry will definitely be able to make it tonight? >> that's the plan. i want to shift gears to the debate and there seems to be some sparring between the romney camp and the perry camp a little bit with governor perry seeming to be very comfortable taking little digs at the governor's record, governor romney's record from massachusetts. should we expect that that's going to be the governor perry we see tonight? >> governor perry has only been a

bill: ray sullivan is a communication direct *erb for the rick perry campaign.you as you were playing this. you had a smile on your face. i know you like this ad, it hits at the heart of mitt romney, what is the issue here, sir. >> governor rom me has a long history of being on all sides of all issues. this is most recent example. he praised obama's education secretary the day before the debate and supported race to the top which is a national standards, curriculum program the obama administration has been pushing. 24 hours later he comes out and says, i don't know where that came from, i don't support that program. bill: he says you did not finish his sentence. he went onto say, for me, come a get that back to the state level. did you misrepresent mitt romney's statement? >> i think if you look at mr. romney's words at the rally in florida, praising president obama's education secretary, praising race to the top, praising those federal standards and curriculum i don't know how we can say it any clearer than what mr. romney said. he changed his position 24 hours

about any mock debates and it may be that that needs to change because to their credit early on ray sullivancommunications director for the campaign said he's not a good debator. are they playing games? he's increased the number of debates he's done in his career by 50% in the last 16 days. we're seeing it. he's not good and quick on his feet but more importantly he's not gotten better. >> there isn't a general audience reaction as king makers and money people hang back and say wait a second, if he want do this in a florida regional debate party debate, how will he go with barack obama? >> we've all talked about this. i think the bar for him is pretty low. i think people just want to see him kind of walk and chew gum or talk and chew gum because they feel like he's positioned both tonally and issueswise to be the guy that can ignite enough of the establishment in the party and be that nominee but that 15 seconds felt like 15 minutes. if you're a donor watching that and you push forward and think okay, it's september 2012 and rick perry is on stage with barack obama, that has to worry you. to

. >> ken, i'll ask you a question, ray sullivan the governor's communication director was on msnbc thisd governor perry, like hmany republicans i the south, he said to prove his republican bona fides that he twice voted for ronald reagan. he was al gore's chairman in 1998, if you twice voted for ronald reagan how was it that al gore was preferable to ronald reagan's vice president george h.w. bush? >> i don't know if he's been asked that directly, but i'm going to guess at his answer. back then rick perry like a lot of texans was a southern conservative democrat. john, you may be too young to remember but we used to have people like that in the south. we don't really anymore and perry followed the course that a lot of texans did when they became republicans. i first moved to texas in the mi mid-'70s and having grown up in brooklyn, new york and living in florida i was shocked at the people in east texas who called themselves democrats. to my view they never should have been democrats and that's what rick perry was, i can't imagine it will be a big problem in this campaign, but we'll see