TX Primaries

[Nbadan]

Perry takes a lead in the early voting that could be telling..


Kay Bailey Debra Rick ... ... ... ... ... ...
County Hutchison Medina Perry (Incumbent) Total Registered ... Provisional Precincts Total
... REP REP REP Votes Voters TurnOut% Ballots Reported Precincts
ALL COUNTIES 116,482 67,392 197,427 381,301 13,023,358 2.92% 1,225 124 8,236
Early 116,477 67,389 197,420 381,286 ... ... 1,225 ... ...

Source: Office of State (http://enr.sos.state.tx.us/enr/results/mar02_148_race22.htm)

[Nbadan]

On the Dem side, I am ready to declare Bill white the winner with a 90k vote lead...


Alma Ludivina Felix (Rodriguez) Bill Clement E. Star Farouk Bill ... ... ... ... ... ...
County Aguado Alvarado Dear Glenn Locke Shami White Total Registered ... Provisional Precincts Total
... DEM DEM DEM DEM DEM DEM DEM Votes Voters TurnOut% Ballots Reported Precincts
ALL COUNTIES 3,714 5,528 2,825 2,620 1,666 13,707 103,523 133,583 13,023,358 1.02% 95 135 8,380

Office of State (http://enr.sos.state.tx.us/enr/results/mar02_149_race5.htm)

[Nbadan]

Kay - 125K Perry 209K - Medina 71K

Last updated: 3/2/2010 7:49:11 PM Central

[Nbadan]

Kay - 128,873 Medina 73,578 Perry 215,125

157 of 8236 reporting

[EmptyMan]

:(

[boutons_deux]

The Tea baggers are tearing up the state, destroying the GOP! :lol

[Crookshanks]

Kay just conceded to Perry. So - it looks like no run-off.

[DMX7]

Do tea party people think he is doing a good job?

[ChumpDumper]

Do tea party people think he is doing a good job?HPV vaccinations and stimulus money for all!

[Nbadan]

I wonder if Perry will get his 50%...right now its pretty close with 7535/8236 reporting

Kay 429,437 Medina 261,629 Perry 718,403

429,437
+261,629
-----------
691,066 - down to 27,000 votes!

[ElNono]

It's awfully quiet in this thread...

[coyotes_geek]

It's awfully quiet in this thread...

Between White having owned the democratic primary from day 1 and Perry steadily pulling away from KBH & Medina over the last couple of months there really wasn't a whole lot of intrigue left by the time yesterday rolled around.

I guess Kinky Friedman flaming out in his primary also rates noteworthy.

[coyotes_geek]

Regarding the five ballot propositions on the gop side, I thought that was pretty much a waste of time. The question about the photo id was the only one of the 5 that I thought had any value at all. The three propositions about limiting government growth, cutting taxes and God were really nothing more than taking a vote on generic talking points, i.e. worthless. I was mildly surprised that the question over requiring the sonogram, a concept that I think is absolute crap btw, only got 68%. I was expecting that to be higher.

[coyotes_geek]

CG: I thought this article gave a pretty good assessment of KBH's downfall.

*****************

Seeds of Hutchison defeat were sown years ago

The blame for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's overwhelming defeat should be spread rather evenly among her confidants, her paid staff, her former paid staff and Hutchison herself.

Her loss to Gov. Rick Perry was years in the making. It was the product of poor preparation, a failure to make hard choices and a national headwind that was out of her control.

Hutchison had been planning to enter the 2010 race ever since she opted not to challenge Perry in 2006. But a bit of complacency set in after that election, when Hutchison posted a much larger margin of victory against one major opponent than Perry posted against three.

Hutchison and her team misinterpreted those margins as a sign that she was the state's most popular Republican. But that support was a mile wide and an inch deep.

Her 2008 vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program may have helped prevent a further economic collapse, but it cost her campaign dearly. That vote became the central focus of Perry's campaign against her, which Hutchison should have seen coming. But at the time, several key members of her team did not think that Perry, already in office for eight years, was serious about seeking a third term.

At the end of 2008, polls showed Hutchison leading a head-to-head matchup by more than 20 points. Perry saw those numbers, too, but determined that he could win.

"At the end of '08 when those polls were done, nobody really knew what the senator's record was," Perry told me during a campaign trip last week. "She had been way up there in Washington, D.C., and nobody knew what her record was."

Perry didn't have many big accomplishments in the 2009 legislative session. But he methodically shored up his areas of weakness, as the Legislature passed a small-business tax break and a constitutional amendment on property rights and Perry supported bills important to anti-abortion activists.

But none of that mattered as much as Perry's decision to engage with antigovernment activists who would scare off many politicians. He started talking about states' rights. He started going to tea party events. And, yes, he winked at those who think Texas should secede from the United States.

Hutchison and her team decided to stay out of the 2009 legislative session. After all, they were well ahead. But this allowed Perry to become the face of anti-Obama activism in Texas.

The senator, meanwhile, could not find her voice. A source close to her campaign said she had planned to run as someone who could bring Republicans and Democrats together to solve the state's challenges. But that plan assumed that she would coast to the Republican nomination. She simply could not adjust to the reality that Perry was in the race.

For years, she's been able to walk into just about any Texas town and point to the projects that she secured and jobs she protected. There were military bases and universities and overpasses that she fought for on the Appropriations Committee. But those very efforts worked against her as the idea that Hutchison spent too much ultimately trumped the explanation that she was fighting for Texas.

Hutchison had once pledged to be a "positive, happy warrior." But instead of finding surrogates to deliver her attacks, Hutchison carried out many of those attacks herself. This was not the Kay Bailey Hutchison that Texas voters had so overwhelmingly elected. And none of those attacks, whether they were about Perry's allies pressuring unloyal university regents to resign or about his flailing Trans-Texas Corridor, had the vigor or reach of Perry's anti-Obama pounding.

Hutchison and her team left a number of potent issues on the bench. They made numerous television ads about toll roads and property rights, but they didn't forcefully highlight the fact that Texas has its highest unemployment rate since the 1980s, or high insurance rates or the fact that a state commission was moving to expand the Governor's Mansion.

And they could not get past the question of resignation. Hutchison had long planned to resign her Senate seat last fall, but when the time came, her campaign staff told her that to do so would infuriate Republicans who wanted the Obama administration fought at every turn. So she stayed, but the questions about when she would resign never fully went away.

What was supposed to be a coronation turned into a nightmare as Perry did exactly what he set out to do. He defined Hutchison better than she could define herself.

We now have eight months to see if he can do the same to Bill White.

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/seeds-of-hutchison-defeat-were-sown-years-ago-311647.html

[TeyshaBlue]

Adios, mofo.

[TeyshaBlue]

One of the better outcomes: The State Board of Education makes a move to the center as some of the far right nutbars are replaced.

This one is gone for good. Adios Mofo. http://www.cynthiadunbar.com/

[coyotes_geek]

One of the better outcomes: The State Board of Education makes a move to the center as some of the far right nutbars are replaced.

This one is gone for good. Adios Mofo. http://www.cynthiadunbar.com/

I'll feel better about this if/when her clone, Brian Russell, loses his runoff election.

[SnakeBoy]

In other news, Kinky Friedman still can't win shit. Poor Kinky.

[Winehole23]

It wasn't a dead loss. The campaign may have helped his book some.

[Winehole23]

It's awfully quiet in this thread...Yep.

The Texas governor is arguably the third or fourth most powerful person in Texas government after the "guv lite", the House Speaker and the Comptroller.

The main drama this time around is whether the Dems will win one statewide office or none. David Dewhurst, Joe Straus and Susan Combs will still be the real big shots in Texas government.

Bill White, should he win, will have to learn to get along with them.

Rick Perry, when he in all likelihood does win, will have precious little time to kindle his 2012 Presidential ambitions, but who knows?

He could be looking ahead to 2016, but Rick Perry is 60 years old today.

[byrontx]

The best thing about the results is snuffing KBH as the best female presidential canidate that the GOP could have nurtured. She would have been dangerous in the future but she ain't no mo.
Perry's weak ass will never be prez material.

[coyotes_geek]

The best thing about the results is snuffing KBH as the best female presidential canidate that the GOP could have nurtured. She would have been dangerous in the future but she ain't no mo.

JMO, but I've never gotten the impression from KBH that she was looking at a presidential run. I think she only ran for governor because it would have been a nice, cushy, low stress job, in Texas instead of Washington. Guv would have made a nice transition job between senator and retirement for her.


Perry's weak ass will never be prez material.

I used to think that, but now I'm not so sure. At least if we're defining "prez material" as being capable of winning a nationwide party nomination. It's not like there's some long line of well known republican presidential contenders. It's not far fetched in the least to think that Perry could be the republican nominee.

[SnakeBoy]

He could be looking ahead to 2016, but Rick Perry is 60 years old today.

Damn, that makes his hair all the more impressive.

[Winehole23]

Looking good, Governor. Happy birthday.:cheer

[Nbadan]

Looking good, Governor. Happy birthday.:cheer

Yeah for Texas!!! What an ass-hat...Governor Goodhair has proven his worthiness to the far right faction of the wing-nut party....Hutch was such a bad legislator in Washington even Democrats couldn't hold their noses long enough to vote for her over Governor Gooodhair, even though their own caucus was over by noon...