Rick Perry growing 'more comfortable' with 'call' to run for president

Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry is growing ever more comfortable with party members unhappy with the current field calling on him to run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

"I’m not ready to tell you that I’m ready to announce that I’m in," Perry told The Des Moines Register. "But I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs."

He said he would decide whether or not to run for president in two or three weeks.

Former George W. Bush political aide Karl Rove recently said that he believes Perry will run for president.

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

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

Meanwhile, a former top campaign aide for Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has joined up with the California-based group Americans for Rick Perry. Craig Schoenfeld will serve as executive director of the group's Iowa organization, according to a press release.

Perry is the longest-serving governor in Texas history and has recently received criticism over a planned evangelical Christian prayer rally he initiated in Houston.