Rick Perry ups ante with twist on Mitt Romney's '4 aces'

The Perry strategy carries a risk: Discussions of class may invite increased scrutiny of Perry, who today lives comfortably thanks to Texas taxpayers.

Still, the differences between the two couldn't be clearer.

Perry, 61, was raised on a west Texas farm, attended Texas A&M University and worked on the family's farm after five years in the Air Force before entering politics in the 1980s. He has spent the last 27 years in elected office, including a decade as governor, and has a net worth of roughly $1.1 million.

But in small-town Iowa, Perry emphasized his up-by-the-bootstraps biography. He sketched a scene of his early life in west Texas, with its small churches and rural highways, familiar to many of the activists who attend the Iowa caucuses and the South Carolina primary, important early-voting contests next year.