Texas Governor Rick Perry’s flirtation with seeking the Republican presidential nomination had people talking in Austin even before key figures in his past campaigns quit working today for Newt Gingrich.

Dave Carney, a Perry adviser, and Rob Johnson, who ran the governor’s 2010 re-election campaign, both abandoned Gingrich’s presidential bid. That drew more attention to the possibility that the longest-serving U.S. governor could make a run for the nation’s top office.

Johnson’s resignation as Gingrich’s campaign manager and Carney’s departure as a political adviser will prompt more talk of Perry’s entering the 2012 race, said Jeff Crosby, an Austin political consultant. Johnson managed Perry’s victories last year over Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary and former Houston Mayor Bill White in the general election.

“People in Austin close to Perry are saying that he’s being drawn into this because the Republican field is so weak,â€