He's a very attractive candidate and he's a true conservative, someone who will be on various folks' lists.

What conservatives have realized during the last five years is that we have not elected a conservative president. Nor do we have a conservative majority in either the House or Senate.

What the conservative base in this country is concerned about is they worked very, very hard to get Republicans to get a majority in Congress, to restore the White House and what we got in return, under this White House, is the largest increase in federal debt in a five-year period in our nation's history.

Most of the people in the audience had never seen or heard of Rick Perry. He got their attention, no question.

Bush is no conservative.

By any standard this is a low point. It will be interesting to see if Bush goes for a conservative, in-your-face appointment to the Supreme Court to rally the base, which has been more critical than before but has not turned on him.