Texas governor Perry campaigns for GOP candidates in Iowa

DES MOINES - Texas Gov. Rick Perry told fellow Republicans Thursday that Iowa is the 'epicenter” for America's future given the pivotal election races to be decided here Nov. 4, beginning with a U.S. Senate race that might decide control of that crucial legislative chamber.

Perry, a possible 2016 presidential candidate who has been governor of Texas the past 14 years, said Iowa has a team of Republican candidates up and down the ballot who believe in limited government, less regulatory interference, lower taxes and accountable education.

The Texas governor said his state is a national leader in job creation because Republicans took control in 2003 and implemented policies that have spurred growth. Iowa can do the same, he said, if voters 'get the right people in the right places” by electing GOP candidates like Terry Branstad for governor, Adam Gregg for attorney general and Joni Ernst for U.S. senator.

'Iowa is the epicenter of the future of America,” Perry told a breakfast meeting at the Iowa Association of Business & Industry headquarters. 'We get these elections right in the next 12 days, America will be on a trajectory that I will suggest to you is very, very hopeful from an economic standpoint.

'We'll talk about 2016 at the appropriate time,” said Perry, who estimated he has traveled to Iowa about 20 times over the last year or so, 'but the fact is we've got to get 2014 right or 2016 won't matter.”

Perry's Des Moines stop was on behalf of Gregg's candidacy and he is to join Ernst later Tuesday in Marion for a Texas-style barbecue. He said electing Gregg is important to give Iowa an attorney general who will challenge intrusive federal regulations and protect Iowans against cyber criminals - a hallmark of Gregg's campaign.

Gregg, making his first bid for public office against eight-term Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller, said the incumbent is more interested in defending President Barack Obama than representing Iowans' interest and is so out of touch he 'doesn't even use email” in an era when everything - including crime - is moving online.

'There are many of you who probably have sent three emails just this morning since I've been talking,” Gregg joked. 'If you don't even use that most basic form of technology, how are you going to understand the types of complex financial frauds which can occur online? We need an attorney general who stays two steps ahead of criminals, not two decades behind them.”

Gregg thanked Perry for campaigning on his behalf and told the roughly 50 attendees 'this is somebody that we need to take a serious look at” when the focus turns to the 2016 presidential selection process during Iowa's first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses.