PrintMarch 3, 2010
It's Perry in Texas GOP primary
On tax day last year Gov. Perry was at a tea party. Kay Bailey Hutchison was reportedly at a mattress store. Guess who won the Texas Republican primary? Here's analysis from the Houston Chronicle:
Less than a year ago, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was the most popular elected official in Texas and the odds-on favorite to be the next governor of Texas. Some polls showed her leading the incumbent, Rick Perry, by more than 20 points.I believe it's called the McCain strategy, "appealing to moderates and independents of both parties" and yes it is a "flawed strategy." Note to all Republicans running for office anywhere in America, stick to Reagan conservatism and you will win. Contrary to popular belief independents don't want moderate candidates, they want authentic candidates with core values.
What Hutchison didn't realize this time a year ago was that her fate may well have been sealed by Tax Day, April 15, 2009, when Perry spoke at tea party rallies in Houston, Dallas and Austin and suggested - merely suggested - that Texas might have reason to secede from the union. He never mentioned the word "secession," but there was no mistaking his drift.
Signaling his sympathy with the wave of anti-Washington, anti-Obama animus sweeping Texas and the country - animus fueled by the tea partiers - Perry effectively tagged his fellow Republican as a creature of Washington after her 16 years in the Senate. She never recovered from the anti-Washington barrage. And she knew it.
At 9:30 Tuesday night, with less than a quarter of the precincts counted statewide, Hutchison conceded the nomination to Perry.
She paid dearly for not recognizing early enough the power of the anti-Washington sentiment. "I think she spent tax day at a mattress sales place," said Ted DeLisi, a political consultant to Perry who helped convince the governor that the anti-tax sentiment was "a prairie fire that was going to burn incredibly hot for an incredibly long time."
On election day, Tom Mc-Kenzie, a senior citizen who works at a Houston commercial real estate brokerage, was one voter who saw no reason to make a change in Austin. "Texas has been a pretty successful state comparatively, and ... if it ain't broke, don't fix it," he said. [....]
Hutchison's initial strategy was to broaden the Republican base, appealing to moderates and independents of both parties. It was a flawed strategy, Austin political consultant Jason Stanford said. "You always have to throw the corn where the hogs can get at it. This entire primary was Rick Perry's briar patch, and it ran counter to her appeal," he said of Hutchison.
And don't you just love those Texas aphorisms, " if it ain't broke, don't fix it", in other words if you have a good conservative Republican in office there's no need to make a change. We all know how "change" worked out in the last presidential election.
Debra Medina ran an impressive campaign for a newcomer. Her only mistake was her flubbed answer when Glenn Beck asked her about the truthers. Candidates like Medina will help keep mainstream Republican candidates honest.
Oh and by the way, the winner of the Democratic Primary -- what's his name? Used to be mayor of Houston -- he doesn't have a chance in the general.
