First on CNN: Perry plans campaign-style swing through South Carolina

Peter Hamby

CNN National Political Reporter

(CNN) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry will make a campaign-style swing through the key Republican primary state of South Carolina next week, making four appearances in the state’s most conservative region.

Perry’s keynote speech to a South Carolina Republican Party banquet in Spartanburg next Tuesday has already been announced.

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But the governor has added several more stops to his itinerary, CNN has learned. He will also address the Rotary Club of Downtown Spartanburg earlier that day, putting him in touch with members of the Upstate business community, many of whom supported him during his ill-fated 2012 presidential bid.

The following day, Perry will be the keynote speaker at the Electric Co-Ops of South Carolina Annual Meeting in Greenville. And later that same morning, he plans to address a fundraiser for a local chapter of the Boy Scouts of America, also in Greenville. Perry, a former Boy Scout, opposed the group’s decision earlier this year to admit openly gay Scouts.

Perry has made no secret of his interest in a second presidential bid, and the South Carolina trip will be Perry’s second visit this year to the first-in-the-south primary state.

In August, he attended Gov. Nikki Haley’s re-election announcement in August, and had a private dinner with Haley and a small group of advisers at a Greenville steakhouse later that evening, two Republican sources told CNN.

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Earlier this month Perry made a two-day swing in Iowa, the state that kicks off the presidential caucus and primary calendar.