Rove says he expects Perry to run for president

Former Bush political guru Karl Rove said Wednesday that he thinks Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) will run for president.

Rove, who enjoys longstanding and deep ties to Texas Republican politics, said he expects Perry to jump into the race for the GOP nomination — and raise big bucks if he does so.

"I think you're right that he's going to run," Rove said on Fox Business Network.

"This is a big state with nearly 24 million people. And if you're the governor of the state you have the capacity to go out and raise a lot of money from people," he said.

Perry, a candidate some grassroots conservatives are urging to run, will decide in the next several weeks about whether to make a late entry into the race. The ties between alumni of President George W. Bush's political operation haven't always been close with Perry, Bush's successor as governor, but several of them including veteran Mark McKinnon have said they think Perry will run.

Rove also had some love for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) for tuning his economic message, though Romney's faced accusations of stumbling in voicing an argument that President Obama had made the recession worse.

"I have to tip my hat to Mitt Romney in pointing to the failures of the president's policies ... I thought it was a really nifty move when Mitt Romney went to the same Allentown, Pa., factory that President Obama had gone to to herald his stimulus package, which in the subsequent months has shut down and laid off all its workers," Rove said, referring to Romney's trip last week to eastern Pennsylvania.