Texas Republican Civil War Officially Kicks Off

No one is surprised, of course, that thoroughly conservative Kay Bailey Hutchison, has officially entered the Texas gubernatorial race against far right extremist and secessionist incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry. This morning she was out for blood.

“Now he's trying to stay too long-- 14 years, maybe longer,” Hutchison said. She accused Perry of leaving the state with record-high property taxes, spiraling debt, excessive school tuition and dropout rates and the largest number of uninsured children in the nation. “Ten years is enough. We can do better."

“We need results, not politics. And that starts with term limits for Texas governor. For any governor, eight years is enough,” Hutchison said. “We can’t afford 14 years of one person appointing every state board, agency and commission. It invites patronage. It tempts cronyism. And it has to stop, now.”

Hutchison, who has served Texas in the Senate since 1993, promised “a clear, conservative vision for the future of Texas,” focusing on fiscal discipline, education, transportation, healthcare and government reform.

The three-term Republican also promised her party would change its ways under her guidance, growing instead of shrinking.

“For the last decade, the Republican Party in Texas has been shrinking. We’re losing elections we used to win easily,” she said. “As Republicans, we can continue down the road of shrinking majorities. Or we can inspire, unite, and grow our party.”

Texas has no campaign finance rules and this contest is likely to be one of the most expensive non-presidential primaries ever fought in history, eating up tens of millions of dollars in right-wing money that would otherwise be deployed against Democrats. Hutchison's pending resignation from the Senate will also kick off a vicious battle for the special election to fill that seat.

Saturday Jim McKinley took a look at the GOP rifts in Texas at the NY Times. He reminds his readers that Perry is an "ideologue whose recent flourishes include expressing sympathy for secessionists and supporting a failed effort to add a 'choose life' logo to license plates. Perry himself calls the battle against Hutchison "a civil war-- brother against brother."

Mr. Perry’s opponent is Kay Bailey Hutchison, the state’s senior senator. On most issues, Ms. Hutchison is also a steady conservative hand, but her tone is more moderate, her positions on social issues are more nuanced, her votes on government spending are more pragmatic.

...“I do not want a governor who is going to narrow our base, make it dwindle,” Ms. Hutchison said in a speech this week. “That is what has happened at the national level, and that is not going to happen in Texas.”

“I will work to build the Republican Party,” she added, “not make it narrower. I am for Ronald Reagan’s big tent.”

Elected to the Senate 16 years ago, Ms. Hutchison, now 66, has wanted for a long time to be governor. She pulled out of the governor’s race in 2006 only after several major Republican donors persuaded her that Mr. Perry would not run for a third term.

Mr. Perry, 59, denies he ever made such a promise, though some Republican donors now supporting Ms. Hutchison insist he did. In any event, the bad blood has made it impossible for party leaders to head off a primary fight this time around, several prominent Republicans said.

Ms. Hutchison argues that Mr. Perry’s aggressive courtship of conservatives has alienated moderates, independents and minorities. The party lost all the state’s major metropolitan counties in the presidential election last year, an ill omen for the future, and its majority in the Texas House has shrunk to a single seat.

The senator has the support of a handful of people who helped put George W. Bush in the White House. She has also attracted the support of Republicans with deep pockets from Dallas and Houston who backed Mr. Perry in the last two elections.

Some of those people fear that the rightward tilt of the state party organization leaves an opening for a Democrat to win back the governorship for the first time since Ann Richards captured it 19 years ago. Others say Mr. Perry has not done enough to cut taxes on property and businesses.

Mr. Perry, on the other hand, enjoys strong support from evangelical leaders and the voters who usually turn out heavily in the primaries: members of antitax groups, religious conservatives, creationists, foes of abortion and a variety of other Texans opposed to big government.

Kinky Friedman, who ran as an independent last time, is running as a Democrat this time. It's likely that other Democrats will jump into the race as well. Meanwhile, did you know that red, red Texas has the highest property taxes in the whole US? I wonder how long it would take for them to quintuple if the state actually goes ahead and secedes.