Rick Perry wows Alabama Republicans before announcing candidacy (VIDEO)

The Alabama Republican Party pulled out all the stops for Texas Gov. Rick Perry on the eve of his official campaign announcement Saturday at the RedState Gathering of conservative activists in Charleston. 

With 1,500 guests, the turnout to the annual Summer Dinner in Birmingham om Friday was the biggest in Alabama GOP history, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Perry, 61, the keynote speaker at the event, told the appreciative southerners:

"Texas and Alabama have a lot in common. Y’all have a little different barbecue than we have…but like Texas, you’re gearing up for an even better Republican result in 2012."

He was referring to the "conservative tide in the 2010 elections that captured all of Alabama’s state offices for the state’s Republicans," the Chronicle writes.

In what was being compared to a stump speech, he also attacked President Barack Obama on his jobs record and discussed his own — a subject that is expected to be a pillar of his presidential campaign.

“They’re true believers,” Perry reportedly said of the Obama administration. “They truly believe that the federal government is the answer to every need.”

He called Obama a “threat to every private sector job out there.”

Perry's candidacy for the GOP presidential race jolts the field of candidates and threatens to overshadow that key Iowa test vote Saturday, the AP reports.

The straw poll pits six Republican presidential hopefuls against each other in an unofficial test of campaign strength. Frontrunner Mitt Romney chose not to participate after winning the straw poll in 2007, Reuters reports.

The poll is really a nonbinding mock election, held to raise money for the state party, but it "traditionally winnows the field of poor performers and boosts those who do better than expected," Reuters writes. 

However, Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee who has yet to declare her intentions in 2012, questioned the poll's validity during a visit to the Iowa state fair Friday, Reuters reports.

"It's not always the tell-tale sign of what the electorate is feeling. It's who happens to show up and has the time and energy to spend that day for their particular candidate."

The poll comes two days after the eight current Republican contenders clashed — at times bitterly — in a nationally televised debate.

(GlobalPost reports: Claws come out in Republican debate ahead of Iowa poll)

After South Carolina, Perry — who upon his campaign announcement is expected to immediately join the top tier of contenders along with front-runner Romney — travels to New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state, then visits Iowa Sunday.