But it is a credential Mr. Perry is unlikely to highlight that could make him the most formidable entrant into the Republican primary so far: he is among the top political fund-raisers in the country, with a vast network of wealthy supporters eager to bankroll his presidential ambitions, and he has the potential to energize a Republican donor class that has shown only limited enthusiasm for the candidates already in the race.
In three campaigns for governor, Mr. Perry has raised $102 million, including more than $39 million during his successful 2010 bid for re-election. The Republican Governors Association, of which Mr. Perry is chairman, raised a record $22.1 million during the first half of this year. And in recent months, even as the candidate himself was coy about his presidential ambitions, Mr. Perry?s campaign finance operation has shifted into high gear, holding meetings around the country with dozens of the party?s top uncommitted donors, some of whom have already pledged to raise money for him.
?He is the most successful fund-raiser in the history of Texas politics,? said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog organization that tracks campaign spending. ?He may be the best in the country. He will have no trouble raising the money he needs for his presidential campaign.?
People familiar with Mr. Perry?s plans say that he would aim to raise up to $10 million within a few weeks of formally entering the race, twice as much as any Republican candidate except for Mitt Romney has raised all year. Mr. Perry?s top ?bundlers?? supporters who gather checks from friends, family members and business associates ? could be asked to raise as much as $250,000 each, though campaign officials said that hard targets were still in flux.
To jump-start his fund-raising, Mr. Perry will hold events in nine cities between Aug. 29 and Sept. 1, according to an e-mail sent to his top donors Thursday afternoon.
?We are trying to get in the first million dollars of contributions very rapidly, to give the campaign its initial capital so important to get off the ground well,? wrote George Seay, Mr. Perry?s Texas finance chairman.
?From a fund-raising point of view, he looks very formidable,? said Barry D. Wynn, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and a top fund-raiser for former president George W. Bush. ?He?s battle tested with regards to his gubernatorial race. And I think a number of the people who have been pretty successful raising money for other campaigns are people he?s been able to make contact with.?
Last month, about two dozen current and potential Perry supporters met in Austin with members of the governor?s fund-raising team to discuss a potential run, many of them donors who supported the presidential bids of Mr. Bush or former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York in 2008. Mr. Perry?s aides did not ask for specific dollar commitments at the meeting, participants said, but several volunteered anyway.
?A number of people just volunteered that they were going to do their part in L.A. or San Diego or Palm Beach or Philadelphia or New York,? said Mr. Wynn. ?Without being asked, they said, ?We can do it.? ?
Mr. Perry?s strength as a fund-raiser reflects, in large part, his lengthy tenure as governor ? he is the longest-serving chief executive in Texas history ? in a state that is a treasure trove of Republican money and has few restrictions on political giving. And as a sitting governor, he has one advantage that the Republican field?s current top fund-raiser ? Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor ? no longer enjoys.
In Texas, individual and political action committees may give unlimited contributions to candidates for governor, and Mr. Perry has exploited that leeway to the hilt: according to a study by Texans for Public Justice, fully half of Mr. Perry?s campaign contributions, totalling roughly $51 million, have come from just 204 donors giving $100,000 or more. A single couple, Robert Perry, a Texas homebuilder, and his wife, Doylene, who are not related to the governor, have given Mr. Perry more than $2.5 million over the years.
In a state whose government is fragmented among dozens of commissions, boards, and agencies, Mr. Perry has also raised aggressively from his own appointees, an approach permitted by state law and practiced by governors of both parties. According to Texans for Public Justice, since taking office Mr. Perry has raised more than $17 million from 921 of his appointees or their spouses.
?Democrats and Republicans have traditionally done this,? said Mr. McDonald. ?But he?s taken it to a higher level than anyone else.?
In part because federal law caps at $2,500 the amount individuals can give to any one candidate during the primary, Mr. Perry will not be able to raise money nearly as easily as he has in the past. But Mr. Perry?s top donors represent a corps of bundlers-in-waiting that any of his rivals would envy.
And thanks to loose campaign rules in the wake of the Supreme Court?s Citizens United decision, whatever money his wealthiest Texas supporters cannot give directly to Mr. Perry could easily end up in the coffers of one of the half-dozen or so ?SuperPACs? ? technically independent groups that in the wake of the court?s decision can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support a candidate ? that have been set up in recent weeks by former Perry aides and supporters.
One former Perry aide, Dan Shelley, recently formed two independent expenditure groups, Veterans for Rick Perry and the Jobs for Vets Fund. Another group, Make Us Great Again, was formed with help from Mike Toomey, a former chief of staff to Mr. Perry who is now an Austin lobbyist.
Mr. Perry is also poised to make inroads among donors who had hoped to back either Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, or Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, before each man opted out of running. Many of those donors have relationships with Mr. Perry through his work with the governor?s association.
?In my time around the R.G.A., Perry?s genuinely one of the handful of governors who?s really been active nationally,? said Henry Barbour, Haley Barbour?s nephew and a lobbyist in Mississippi. ?So he?s got those relationships, and I think that gives you a confidence.?
Mr. Barbour added: ?When you?ve asked people for $100,000, or $250,000, or even a million dollars, you can do this at the national level.?