Campaign

Key super-PAC figure blindsided by Perry dropping out

by Jonathan Swan - 09/11/15 8:02 PM ET

Austin Barbour spent his Friday afternoon on a football field in Jackson, Miss., coaching his 9-year old son and completely oblivious to the fact that the man he was supporting for president, Rick Perry, was withdrawing from the race.

Barbour is a senior adviser to the pro-Perry Opportunity and Freedom super-PAC network, a formidable force that’s collected big Texas money, reporting some $17 million in its mid-year accounts.

{mosads}Barbour was deep in fourth-grade football when Perry took the stage for his resignation speech.

“My phone was ringing a little bit and I thought, ‘I got to put it on mute,’ ” he said.

“And then I got off the field and saw I had 43 missed calls on my phone. So I figured something real bad’s happened.”

Barbour said he takes the “separation” between the campaign and super-PAC so seriously — the outside groups are not allowed to coordinate with the official campaign by law — that he “honestly had no idea what was going on in there.”

After hearing the news of Perry’s withdrawal, Barbour spoke with the super-PAC team, which has been taking on more and more duties for Perry’s bid since the official campaign ran out of money several weeks ago.

Barbour and his super-PAC colleagues now face the unusual task of having a pile of money that they can’t spend on their candidate.

“We got to figure out what to do with all the money,” Barbour said.

Barbour says he believes the pro-Perry super-PACs still have somewhere in the neighborhood of $12 million to $13 million.

“I don’t know what we can do with it,” he said. “We’ll need to speak with our lawyers.”

“If the donors want it back, obviously that’s what we will do,” he added.

Asked how he and the team felt when he heard the news, Barbour said, “Oh man, dejected. We all love Rick Perry and his wife, Anita.”

“We wish we could’ve kept up the efforts and we were making up ground in Iowa, but we all know it’s a personal choice for the governor and his family, and we totally respect that and wish them well.”

A rumor was circulating in congressional circles yesterday that Perry was considering resigning from the race, but the super-PAC insisted it wasn’t going anywhere.

As recently as this morning, Barbour retweeted an optimistic message about the super-PAC’s advertising spending in Iowa: “In It For The Long Haul: Opportunity and Freedom PAC is Back On The Air In Iowa.”

“I guess you’d have to say it was a surprise,” Barbour said.

Tags Austin Barbour Rick Perry