CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA — Reports that the presidential campaign of former Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) is running out of money and not paying its staff in South Carolina are highly overstated, according to Perry and close confidants who wished to remain anonymous.

“It is true, that the donations haven’t been rolling in like they did back in um, oops, what was that year I ran for president again,” Perry began the press conference yesterday in South Carolina, “but I am convinced that when enough people see me in my new glasses, proving I’m smart and should be taken serial, then the money will start flowing like bricks of solid gold again.” It was a humid Monday afternoon, and Perry’s glasses — the most striking change made to his campaign since four years ago — were fogging as he spoke. “But I am still able to pay my staff. The implication that I am not paying them is an outright lie from the lamestream, gotcha liberal press,” Perry continued.

According to close sources in the Perry 2016 campaign, the man who as the governor of Texas was so boastful of his economic prowess that he took out ad space in other states, directly attempting to lure big companies to the Lone Star State, has decided that until the campaign donations start back up in earnest, he will be paying those who work for him in hugs and wishes. The first hug payments were given out by Perry himself at his South Carolina campaign headquarters in Charleston.

“He just walked up to me, looked at me sideways, like a puppy who knows he’s shit on the rug and is kinda sorry about it,” one staffer told us, “and he embraced me. He said, ‘I promise when I get some more money, you’ll be able to eat again.’ Then he was off to the cubicle next to me, and he did the same thing over again. Head tilt, hug, and then a promise to pay later.”

When the idea of not being able to pay his staff came up, usually a sure-fire sign that a campaign is foundering and likely to fold soon, Perry was reportedly distraught. “I bought these goddamned spenticles to make myself look more smarter, and somehow I’m still coming off dumb and no one wants to give me money!” But after calming down, according to top aides, Perry was already rebounding and thinking of ways to salvage his campaign.

“Governor Perry started running laps around the room, high-fiving people as he ran by them. He told us this was how he got his juices flowing, and so we just sat back and watch him run in the same place for literally five hours,” one staffer told us. “Then, he just stops, sticks his finger in the air and shouts ‘Dyson! I’ve got it!'” It was then, according to the same staffer that Perry grabbed a crayon and wrote on the dry erase white board in the office, “Hugs & Wishes.”

“We are going to pay everyone in hugs and wishes,” Perry reportedly told them, “because hugs make everyone feel good, and wishes are like Trickle Down Economics. You have no guarantee that you’ll get anything out of it, but it sure is fun to pretend it’ll work.” Perry also told staff that “if they don’t want the hug or the wish, we’ll give them an IOU for one Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s for every day they work for me. We gotta give them something.”

One Perry 2016 aide told us that “it’s great that the governor is trying to pay us.” He did admit though that “when [he] took the hug to the grocery store to buy corn, they wouldn’t accept it as legal tender.” That won’t stop him for working for the Texas Republican though. “Sure, he’s broke and clearly such a terrible candidate that no one is seriously considering giving him money, let alone voting for him. But we’re Republicans damnit, we don’t change course mid-stream just because facts and reality show us we’re headed toward utter failure.”

Perry has ranked so low in the polls that he was not an invited guest to the prime time Republican debate held by Fox News last week, and was instead relegated to what many called the “Children’s Table” debate, in which the also-ran candidates squared off. Many considered Perry a big loser of that debate, with Carly Fiorina looking the most ready to lose to the Democratic candidate next November.