Rick Perry’s tough guy challenge for Donald Trump

The cryptocurrency community has latched on to Perry’s “regulatory breathing room” comment, calling it a confirmation of his support for bitcoin.

This is the tough-talking Texan Governor Rick Perry, a Republican running for President, not liberal Massachusetts Sen. In an extensive critique, Perry linked the 2008 housing collapse to Bill Clinton’s efforts to expand the ranks of homeowners in the United States.

The speech, held at the ritzy Yale Club in Manhattan, featured a few of Perry’s most populist language since he launched his campaign.

Many Americans think “the game is rigged”, he said. But instead of them being punished, he said, “it was the average American who paid a tremendous price”, by way of a bailout of big banks.

“I am exhausted of politicians bashing Wall Street while ignoring the sins of Washington, D.C.”, Perry said. “The roots of the financial crisis can be traced to the 1990s”.

Perry’s also looked to nudge up his national poll numbers with a steady stream of cable TV appearances, majority on Fox News. Hillary Clinton was a U.S. senator for the state of New York from 2001 to 2009.

“Democrats have a 1915 view of the 2015 economy”, Perry said, accusing them of building a costly “toll bridge to the 21st Century”. Elizabeth Warren, the creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and fierce advocate for Wall Street regulation.

Perry also said education and tax policies improved in Texas during his tenure.

Perry attacked Bush for not doing more as Florida governor to prevent the housing crash.

For Perry especially, the polling could endanger his highest-profile opportunity yet to show off what he has been telling everyone who will listen over the past several months: He is not the Rick Perry of the 2012 race.

Perry’s speech was organized by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a group of conservative economists long supportive of the former governor.

So while Perry might have been playing well to the moderates and carving out a niche identity as a relatively reasonable GOP candidate, that’s simply not the way to get any traction in the GOP race these days.