Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said Monday he will not run for reelection in 2014 and left open the possibility of making a second run for president. 
 
 Citing Ecclesiastes, the 63-year-old and Texas’s longest-serving governor said he would leave office at the end of this term and decide what to do next. 
 
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 “The time has come to pass on the mantle of leadership. Today, I am announcing I will not seek reelection as governor of Texas,” said Perry, speaking before supporters at a Caterpillar dealership in San Antonio. “I will spend the next 18 months working to create more jobs, opportunity and innovation. I will actively lead this great state. I’ll also pray and reflect and work to determine my own future path.” 
 
 (PHOTOS: Rick Perry's career) 
 
 “Any future considerations, I will announce in due time and I will arrive at that decision appropriately,” said Perry, who spent much of the event highlighting his record on the state economy, budget and job creation. 
 
 Perry’s decision clears the way for state Attorney General Greg Abbott to run for governor. The Republican is considered the likely frontrunner in Perry’s absence and has been laying groundwork for a campaign. 
 
 Abbott “will make his intentions clear in the coming weeks,” campaign spokesman Matt Hirsch told POLITICO. He said Abbott has no campaign events planned for this week, but did note Abbott has a meet-and-greet scheduled with supporters in San Antonio on July 14. 
 
 Abbott’s war chest dwarfed Perry’s at last count. Abbott had about $18 million on hand at the end of last year, according to Texas Ethics Commission filings. Perry had about $6 million. Observers in Austin took that as one sign that Perry was likely on his way out. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: 5 things to know about Texas Gov. Rick Perry) 
 
 A recent poll showed Texas voters did not look favorably on another gubernatorial run for Perry. Sixty percent said he should not run for reelection, according to Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. Thirty percent said he should. 
 
 But in hypothetical matchups with Abbott and several of the state’s better-known Democrats – including state Sen. Wendy Davis and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro – Perry still led, the poll showed. 
 
 Any Democratic gubernatorial candidate would face an uphill fight in a state that has not elected a statewide Democrat since 1994. 
 
 Perry took office in 2000 after then-Gov. George W. Bush was elected president. He won three subsequent elections, most recently beating then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the 2010 gubernatorial primary and Democrat Bill White in the general election. 
 
 In August 2011, Perry joined the Republican presidential primary race. He famously stumbled in a debate by forgetting one of the federal departments he proposed eliminating. He dropped out in January 2012. 
 
 On Sunday, he talked at more length about a possible second run for president. 
 
 “Well, certainly, that’s an option out there, but again, we got a lot of work to do in this building right behind me [the Texas Capitol] over the course of the next couple of weeks that have my focus substantially more than even 2014 or 2016,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” ||||| 4 years ago 
 
 San Antonio, TX (CNN) - Rick Perry may be giving up what he called "the greatest job in modern politics." But he's not leaving the Texas-sized political stage that launched his last run for the White House anytime soon. 
 
 After an event Monday in San Antonio where he announced he will not be seeking a fourth term as Texas governor, Perry was asked what he plans on doing with the time off he has coming. 
 
 
 
 "No time off man. What are you talking about? You weren't paying attention in there," Perry told CNN. 
 
 During a 15-minute speech thanking his family and supporters, Perry vowed to stay busy around the Texas state house. He repeatedly referred to the fight over abortion rights currently consuming the capitol in Austin. 
 
 But the Texas governor offered few clues about his political future, despite billing Monday's announcement as an unveiling of "exciting" plans. 
 
 Perry seemed prepared to announce only that he would "pray and reflect and work to determine" what comes next. 
 
 "Any future considerations I will announce in due time and I will arrive at that decision appropriately," Perry told the crowd. 
 
 Perry: 2016 ‘certainly an option’ 
 
 Perry's reluctance or unwillingness to reveal any upcoming plans stunned some in the San Antonio crowd. 
 
 "Not making future announcement. Wow," Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based Republican strategist tweeted from the event. 
 
 Still, the campaign-style video that played on the jumbo screen before Perry's remarks left no doubt the Texas Governor and his team believe they still have a story to tell. 
 
 Touting the state's robust job growth over glossy film images of the stark Texan landscape and people, Perry brags in a long Lone Star drawl, "Texas is not merely strong but exceptional." 
 
 "It's obviously on his mind," said one former Perry staffer at the San Antonio event, referring to the possibility of another run for the White House. 
 
 "The sky's the limit," said another Perry loyalist, before conceding some Republicans would have to get over other "remembrances." 
 
 That was a reference to the near implosion of Perry's last campaign during his disastrous November 2011 GOP debate in Michigan. The Texas Governor famously forgot the third of three departments of the federal government he would eliminate as president. "Oops," Perry finally said, after failing to jog his memory in an excruciating and unforgettable television moment. 
 
 After that night, Perry pressed on only to stumble through the early primary and caucus states before bowing out in South Carolina. 
 
 The Texas governor has tried at times to explain his dismal 2012 performance. He has lamented his late entry into the race. 
 
 Still, Perry barreled into the 2012 race as an instant threat to eventual Republican nominee Mitt Romney's front-runner status. Now, as governor for the next 18 months, Perry would still have access to a potent donor base. 
 
 Perry acknowledged he is keeping an eye on 2016 in an interview on Fox News Sunday. "Certainly, that's an option out there," Perry told Fox News. 
 
 In deciding against a fourth bid for governor, Perry has now paved the way for Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott to run for and likely win the state's Republican gubernatorial nomination. State Senator Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who last month filibustered a bill to restrict abortion rights in Texas, is frequently mentioned as a potential Democratic contender. 
 
 Several GOP strategists in the room at Perry's San Antonio event expect Abbott to make a formal announcement as soon as this weekend. Perry's decision to omit specific mentions about any future plans may have been out of courtesy to Abbott. 
 
 There were other notable faces in the crowd. Lee Majors, the star of the 70's era action show, "The Six Million Dollar Man," was also in attendance. 
 
 The sight of the actor who played the fictional astronaut, given super human strength after a near-death experience, invited some observers to wonder whether the same can be done for Perry's political career. 
 
 It's Perry's life that has been the stuff of Hollywood. Raised in the tiny town of Paint Creek, Perry rose to become the state's longest-serving governor. He assumed the governorship in December 2000, when George W. Bush stepped down to become president. Perry was elected to full four-year terms in 2002, 2006 and 2010. 
 
 "It's been an improbable journey," Perry told the crowd. ||||| Photograph by Eric Gay/AP Photo 
 
 Texas Gov. Rick Perry today owned up to an “oops” moment that wasn’t even his. 
 
 His wife, Anita, misspoke when she told a journalist that abortion is a woman’s right, Perry, 63, a Republican who opposes terminating pregnancies, told a crowd in Smithville, New Jersey. 
 
 “From time to time we’ll stick the wrong word in the wrong place, and you pounce upon it,” Perry told reporters at a campaign event for U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan, a 57-year-old Republican from Bogota. Lonegan faces Democrat Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, in the Oct. 16 special election to fill the seat left vacant after the June death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg. 
 
 Anita Perry made her remark Sept. 28 during an interview at the Texas Tribune Festival at the University of Texas in Austin, according to the newspaper. 
 
 “That could be a woman’s right, just like it’s a man’s right if he wants to have some kind of procedure,” Perry was quoted as telling editor-in-chief Evan Smith. 
 
 Texas is the largest and most populous among the 13 states that ban abortion beyond 20 weeks’ gestation. In June, state Sen. Wendy Davis, a Democrat from Fort Worth, filibustered for 11 hours to prevent a vote on that ban. It passed during a special session convened by Perry, who signed the bill July 18. 
 
 Perry failed in his bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, and his decision not to seek another governor’s term has led to speculation that he’ll run again in 2016. He told reporters today that he is traveling around the country “talking about blue-state versus red-state policies and which one of those work best for the people of their states and for the people of this country.” 
 
 During a televised debate Nov. 9, 2011, in Rochester, Michigan, Perry said he would eliminate the U.S. Departments of Education and Commerce, and couldn’t remember his third target. 
 
 “I can’t,” he said then. “Sorry. Oops.” 
 
 Later he looked at his notes and said, “By the way, it was the Department of Energy I was talking about.” ||||| Conservatives longing for a 2012 savior are increasingly fixating on Texas’ governor. Peter Boyer talks to Perry about his suitors, his state’s economic success—and his timetable for deciding. 
 
 One of the photographs that Texas Gov. Rick Perry keeps on his BlackBerry is a portrait of Aurora P. (“Rory”) Perry, the family’s black Labrador Retriever, who last year acquired a key role in local Perry legend. The governor and the dog were out for an early morning jog when a coyote suddenly appeared, growling at Rory. Perry, who carries a Ruger .380 handgun in his belt when he jogs, pulled the weapon and shot the coyote dead. When some Austin locals protested that Perry’s reaction was excessive, and dangerous, he shrugged it off. “Don’t attack my dog,” he said, “or you might get shot.” 
 
 It is the sort of dustup that, say, Mitt Romney would never be involved in—although Romney might well prefer a coyote controversy to another conversation about Romneycare. A lot of conservatives would apparently prefer it, too. Neither Romney, the presumed frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, nor the other contenders, has excited enthusiasm in the Republican base, which seems to want a candidate with less baggage than Newt Gingrich, less squish than Romney, and more magnetism than Tim Pawlenty. The right’s hot new prospect of the moment is the arch-conservative governor of Texas, the man with the square jaw, thick mane, and snakeskin cowboy boots. 
 
 Perry has long flatly declared himself out of the presidential race. Last year, he told Newsweek’s Andrew Romano, and the Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith that he had no interest in a White House run—an assertion that he repeated in a Fox News interview with Greta Van Susteren this week. Yet, rumors to the contrary—plainly fed by a measure of wishful thinking on the right—persist. And, meeting with Newsweek in his office in the Capitol, Perry said that the question of a presidential run might be revisited next week—when the legislative session ends. 
 
 This year’s legislature, under Perry’s cajoling, delivered on some of the right’s most cherished ambitions—a law requiring doctors to run a fetal sonogram before performing an abortion, a measure requiring voters to present a photo I.D. at the polling booth, and a version of loser-pays tort reform. But the action that really has conservatives looking to Texas with longing was a budget deal that covered a revenue shortfall through spending cuts, without raising taxes or touching the state’s $9.4 billion rainy day fund. 
 
 Rick Perry. Credit: Eric Gay / AP Photo 
 
 The Dallas Morning News editorialized against the “mean Texas budget,” noting that the spending cuts came at the expense of education, veterans, and care for the state’s neediest. Perry is unmoved. “Same thing was told in 2003,” he says, referring to the last time the state, at his urging, had to cover a shortfall by cutting spending. “It’s working pretty well in Texas. Texas has made the hard decisions. Twice while I’ve been the governor, we’ve had budget shortfalls, once in ‘03 and this time. We’ve made the decision: reduce your spending, don’t raise taxes. And the recovery that occurs after that is pretty substantial.” 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Also in This Issue: 
 
 • Sharon Begley: Weather Panic is the New Normal 
 
 • Janine di Giovanni: The Making of a Monster 
 
 • Niall Ferguson: Why Austerity WorksIndeed, the Lone Star State’s economic success over the last decade has been notable. Since 2001 (roughly the tenure of Perry, the longest-serving Texas governor) the state has gained more than 730,000 jobs. In contrast, California, Texas’s antithesis in political culture, and a favorite Perry rhetorical foil, lost more than 600,000 jobs in the same period (and is on course to lose more jobs this year than last). 
 
 That gap is why some of Perry’s most ardent support emanates from California. Dan Logue, a Republican in Sacramento’s state Assembly, says he began worrying when the chief executive officer of Carl’s Jr., an iconic California burger chain, told him that he was opening 300 restaurants in Texas this year, none in California, and was considering moving his headquarters to the Lone Star State. Logue asked him why. “He said, 'It takes them two years to get permits in California,' ” Logue recalls. “'It takes 45 days in the state of Texas.'” 
 
 In April, Logue led a delegation of California political leaders, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic former mayor of San Francisco, to Texas on a learning tour. They met with Perry, and with ex-pat California businessmen, and heard the obvious—Texas is a right-to-work state with no income tax, a light regulatory regime, relatively low corporate tax rates, and a steady supply of cheap labor. Newsom, whose political identity is liberal, was struck by the state’s insistently business-friendly attitude. He says now, “You can’t be for jobs, and anti-business”—which happens to be a stock phrase of Rick Perry’s.
– As Rick Perry was waxing poetic over his political future yesterday, he refused to rule out a 2016 run for the White House, calling it "certainly ... an option out there." Today, Texas' longest-serving governor said he "will not seek re-election" in 2014, reports the AP, during a gathering of friends and supporters he called to discuss "exciting future plans." "The time has come to pass on the mantle of leadership," he said, as per CNN; his move opens the door for longtime Texas AG Gregg Abbott. And it does nothing to quell speculation about a run in 2016, notes Politico. "I will spend the next 18 months working to create more jobs, opportunity, and innovation," said Perry. "I will actively lead this great state. I’ll also pray and reflect and work to determine my own future path." The AP has a timeline of Perry's career here.