Rick and Anita Perry don't regret running for president and their family and friends are "all in," the Texas governor's wife said Friday night.
"I absolutely think it was the right decision, and we'd do it again because we believe in America," Anita Perry said on Fox News.
Rick Perry has credited his wife with encouraging him to enter the race, even after he had decided against it earlier in the year.
His wife said: "As a woman, I have to tell you one of the reasons why I really wanted him to get into this race: I'm concerned about the safety of our country and the safety of my children and my grandchildren, and I don't want to always have that worry."
Perry, a nurse, said one of the reasons she encouraged her husband to throw his hat in the race was the issue of healthcare. The GOP candidates have united in their opposition of President Obama's healthcare reform bill, the Affordable Care Act, referred to by critics as “ObamaCare.”
"I don't like socialized medicine, and that's the path we're going," she said. "People can call it what they want to, national health care, nationalized health care, but that is what it is, in my opinion."
Gov. Perry entered the presidential race as a frontrunner in August but his rapid fall in the polls has been attributed in part to his debate performances. Anita Perry said she "can't stand the debates" because they make her nervous for her husband.
During one recent debate, Rick Perry failed to remember the last of three federal departments he proposed to eliminate as president. Perry said it was "just one of those moments in time where you're human."
Perry said she and her husband get through the rough days by relying on their faith. Perry, who said she is "much more guarded" now that she's more aware of media attention, stirred controversy in October when she suggested her husband had been "brutalized" by his rivals over his faith.
She also shared that she appreciates her friendship behind the scenes with other candidates' wives. Perry has bonded with Jon Huntsman's wife Mary Kay and Newt Gingrich's wife Callista in particular.
Perry and Huntsman were already friends through the Republican Governors Association, she said, and she got to know Gingrich better on the trail. The women told ABC News earlier this month that they have bonded in part over protecting their children from the scrutiny of the campaign trail.
"I know all of the spouses except one," Perry told Fox News. According to an ABC report, that one is likely Herman Cain's wife Gloria, who few of the wives have met. Gloria Cain has kept a low profile on the campaign trail and made few appearances at events.
