Rick Perry Will Clear it All Up on Saturday

And it looks like he's in:

Rick Perry intends to use a speech in South Carolina Saturday to make clear that he's running for president, POLITICO has learned.

According to two sources familiar with the plan, the Texas governor will remove any doubt about his White House intentions during his appearance at a RedState conference in Charleston.

It's uncertain whether Saturday will mark a formal declaration, but Perry's decision to disclose his intentions the same day as the Ames straw poll—and then hours later make his first trip to New Hampshire— will send shockwaves through the race and upend whatever results come out of the straw poll.

Immediately following his speech in South Carolina, Perry will make his New Hampshire debut at a house party at the Portsmouth-area home of a state representative, Pamela Tucker, the Union Leader reported Monday. Tucker was among the Granite Staters who went to Texas last week to encourage Perry to run.

Perry is expected to head to Iowa in the days following his New Hampshire trek, too, POLITICO has learned.

This will pretty effectively render the Ames Straw Poll results moot. Michelle Bachman is leading in the latest polls with Romney trailing behind, but none of that will matter if Perry announces for the presidency earlier in the day. The whole bunch of them on the ballot in Ames are pretty much pretenders to the throne anyway, so I wasn't going to put much stock in that event regardless of the winner.

Perry's announcement will probably make some of the GOP machine in Iowa angry, but that's okay. They're given way too much power in picking our eventual nominee.

I wonder if the word of a Perry candidacy might do something to calm things down a bit on Wall Street?  The president's speech sent the market plunging.  Maybe there's some real hope on the horizon.