Battle of the Dueling War Rooms: Perry’s Campaign Circulates Internal Romney Campaign E-mail

It’s open season in the battle of the dueling war rooms.  Rick Perry’s campaign was quick to circulate an e-mail today that’s been making the rounds within the campaign of another presidential contender – Mitt Romney.

Perry’s press team sent reporters an “In Case You Missed It” e-mail originally sent from the Mitt Romney “War Room” to a list of undisclosed recipients.   The e-mail highlighted an article about Perry’s recent defense to questions of his intelligence, saying President Ronald Reagan was also cast as dumb by critics.

When asked if this was a shot across the bow at Romney, Perry’s campaign told ABC News, “You can interpret it however you’d like.”

“It’s their e-mail that they’re comparing Reagan to, highlighting the comparison of President Reagan and Governor Perry,” Mark Miner, spokesman for Governor Perry, told ABC News.  “We appreciate the Romney campaign providing us some information to send out.”

Miner said the Romney e-mail was sent to them, but did not disclose the sender’s identity.

Officials at the Romney campaign confirmed that the e-mail message containing the news clip was circulated within their campaign, but noted that it was just one of hundreds of articles that are sent from their team’s “war room” every day.

“We internally distribute news stories on a variety of topics, which are intended for informational purposes only and do not constitute the viewpoints of the campaign,” Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul told ABC News.

Perry is atop the Republican field in recent polls after ousting Romney from his frontrunner status, but the two governors have yet to fully engage one another.  Romney took a veiled swipe at Perry, who has served in Texas government for three decades, yesterday when he said career politicians were to blame for the troubled economy.

“Career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don’t know how to get us out,” Romney said yesterday at the VFW convention in San Antonio, Texas.

But Perry’s campaign didn’t take the bait, saying the swipe at career politicians couldn’t be directed at Perry, whose resume includes several years working outside of government.

“Governor Perry was a farmer and served in the Military for a combined 19 years,” Miner said Tuesday. ”Mitt Romney must have been talking about someone else in his remarks today.”

Romney and Perry will face each other for the first time next week since Perry entered the presidential race.  They will both attend Sen. Jim DeMint’s Palmetto Freedom Forum in Columbia, S.C., on Labor Day and join their fellow Republican contenders at a debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in California next Wednesday.

Read more about Romney and Perry’s battle on the campaign trail.