First Take: The good news for Rick Perry? Same as the bad

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[h=4]First Take: The good news for Rick Perry? Same as the bad[/h]The good news for Rick Perry is that he's run for president before. The bad news is, well, you can guess. His 2012 bid was a political catastrophe but it also has given him an undervalued asset: experience

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USA TODAY's Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page explains the four reasons why Rick Perry is worth watching for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016. (USA NEWS, USA TODAY)


Former Texas governor Rick Perry gives a thumbs-up to supporters after announcing that he will run for president in 2016 on June 4, 2015 in Addison, Texas.(Photo: Ron Jenkins, Getty Images)


WASHINGTON — The good news for Rick Perry is that he's run for president before.
The bad news is, well, you can guess.
Perry's 2012 bid for the Republican nomination was a political catastrophe, summed up by a four-letter word, "Oops." But it also has given him an asset that too often is undervalued. He has had the experience of participating in the high-wire debates and operating under the relentless scrutiny that is a national campaign.
USA TODAY
Rick Perry launches 2016 presidential campaign




History says that experience matters. Six of the last seven candidates who prevailed in open Republican nomination contests — that is, one in which an incumbent president wasn't running — had run before and lost.
To be sure, the 2016 candidates who are new to the national stage have a significant asset of their own. The fact that they are little-known gives them room to define themselves and build support among voters who don't yet know enough about them to have an opinion.
So the question in a crowded GOP field without a front-runner will be this: Will the more experienced and better-known candidates, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush, be able to win over voters who already are leery of them? Or will the fresh crop of contenders — among them three senators still in their first terms — figure out how to effectively navigate the perils of a presidential campaign?
ONPOLITICS
Six things to know about Rick Perry




Perry, who formally announced his campaign Thursday, knows better than most that running for president is harder than it looks.
"When I went in in 2011, I was not healthy and I was not prepared," Perry told a group of supporters at the Petroleum Club in Fort Worth recently, according to a story in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "Today, I am both." (Among other things, he was recovering from back surgery then.)
When Perry announced his first campaign in August 2011, he instantly led the Gallup Poll, besting former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney by double digits. But after a series of gaffes and blunders — including uttering "oops" at a debate after he couldn't remember just what federal agency it was he had vowed to eliminate — he finished fifth in the opening Iowa caucuses and had dropped out by the South Carolina primary.

Rick Perry salutes as he announces the suspension of his presidential on Jan. 19, 2012, in Charleston, S.C.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Mladen Antonov, AFP/Getty Images)

Since then, he has been studying foreign and domestic policy, traveling abroad and regularly visiting Iowa in hopes of trying again. In a jubilant announcement speech in an airport hanger outside Dallas on Thursday, he spotlighted the booming economy the state enjoyed during his governorship. The longest-serving governor in Texas history, he also emphasized the value of executive experience.
"The question of every candidate will be this one: when have you led?" he said in an implicit jab at Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and some of the other 2016 competitors. "Leadership is not a speech on the Senate floor. It's not what you say. It's what you do."
Perry's speech struck many of the same themes as the announcement address he had delivered four years earlier in Charleston, S.C. But the tone seemed more serious and the remarks studded with more specific commitments, included promises to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and to offer a "responsible plan to fix the entitlement system."
Not mentioned: his 2012 campaign.
A Des Moines Register poll in May of Republicans likely to attend the Iowa caucuses illustrated Perry's problem, and his opportunity. Six in 10 had a favorable impression of him, putting him near the top of the field. In contrast, just 25% had a favorable impression of another governor touting his statehouse experience, Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
But three in 10 had an unfavorable impression of Perry, nearly double that of Kasich. And only about one in 10 didn't have a view of Perry. For Kasich, more than half said they didn't know enough about him to have an opinion — yet.
That said, running for president, especially in an era of cellphones and social media, provides an echo chamber for missteps and leaves little margin for error. That's something Perry understands firsthand and Cruz, for one, learned Wednesday night after he made an ill-timed joke in a speech about Vice President Biden. Biden is mourning the death Saturday of his son, Beau, of brain cancer.
ONPOLITICS
Ted Cruz apologizes for telling Biden joke




By the way, for whatever reasons, history indicates that the political calculations are different among Democrats. They are less likely to reward experience and more open to embracing a fresh face — perhaps a cautionary note for Hillary Clinton.
The only Republican in the past seven open contests to win the presidential nomination on his first try was then-Texas governor George W. Bush in 2000. For Democrats, it's the reverse: The only Democrat in the past seven open contests to win the nomination after trying before and losing was then-vice president Al Gore, also in 2000.
Follow @SusanPage on Twitter.
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