Texas billionaire Ross Perot has endorsed Mitt Romney for president the day of the second presidential debate and three weeks ahead of the election.
The wealthy politico, who ran for president against George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992 (and again in 1996) railing against federal spending, made his endorsement in an Op-Ed for Iowa's The Des Moines Register: “We can’t afford Obama.”
Calling the economy “stagnant” and charging the Obama administration with overseeing an “extraordinary explosion of federal deficits and federal debt,” Perot wrote that it’s “for these reasons that I am endorsing Mitt Romney.”
msnbc Daily Rundown host Chuck Todd cautioned against discounting the impact that Perot could have.
"Don’t ignore this endorsement," Todd said Tuesday. "Ross Perot is associated with one issue: the deficit. Three states is where the deficit issue animates the most: Virginia, Colorado, Iowa. Iowa has the oldest population and therefore the longest memory of Perot. You can sort of connect the dots there."
All three states are considered swing states.
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Todd said Perot's credibility" on this issue would be matched only by endorsements from politicians like former Sec. of State Colin Powell, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or Sen. Joe Lieberman.