Kay Bailey Hutchison

Governor Perry went to 3 separate tea parties yesterday.

Just got off the phone with her office, who confirmed that Washington D.C. Senator Huchison ("R"-D.C.) didn't have the guts to attend a single tea party yesterday.

Vote Rick Perry!!!

Did everyone catch the eye-popping poll out of Texas this morning? It's a must-see. Go check it out right now.

The lede from PPP, the popular IVR outfit, says it all:

Perry trails Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison 56-31 among likely GOP primary voters.

Half of primary voters have favorable opinions of both KBH and Perry, and of those, KBH wins 49% to 33%. That's a big deal. If a voter likes both candidates but he's voting for the other guy, you've gotta re-examine your strategy.

As a campaign pollster, I'd look at these numbers and start digging deep for options for the Governor. These might be the toughest poll numbers for an incumbent -- an unindicted incumbent -- I've seen in ten years.

Perry's sole hope is that this poll uses IVR, a methodology campaign pollsters don't use. But just hoping the poll is bad isn't a happy place to be.

This will be the hottest GOP primary in the country, and KBH is the favorite.

The sample was sizeable: 797 likely primary voters, conducted last week. Full results of the poll are at: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_Texas_224.pdf

I can't believe they pulled this off.  This is major league bad news.  For all intents and purposes, the Democrat Party now controls the Texas House of Representatives.

Conservative Stalwart Tom Craddick has lost his seat to San Antonio Pro Abortion RINO Joe Straus.  The Good News is that we still hold the Governor's Mansion and the State Senate (and a technical, if not practical, 76-74 majority in the state house).  Thus, I nominate the Texas House of Representatives to be part of Flip4.org.

This is a serious wake up call.

One of the first rules of politics is not to mess with what works. Early in the campaign the McCain team was putzing around with press-friendly events on poverty, trade, and global warming. And making up no ground on Obama.

Then the lightbulb went off that maybe they might want to get a few conservative votes. Suddenly, the focus went on Obama's lefty agenda and his tissue thin resume.  Now we are in a horserace.

Why in Wicca's name would one want to disrupt this?

The rumor out there is that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) might be Mac's pick.

Here's Larry Kudlow

Sources tell me that the two finalists for Mac’s veep are Tim Pawlenty and Kay Bailey Hutchison. Obviously, with the Hillary women’s revolt on the floor of the DNC and outside, McCain has a great opportunity if he nominates a woman

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzM5ZmU0YjJhMTUzNjhhNjIwMjU2ZWM3YmRhY2M1MDA=

I've already said this was one of Mac's "bad picks "

2.  Kay Bailey Hutchison  If we want a pro-choice candidate, a non Texan might have a better shot of trying to end up in the net vote dept. Much of America says "No New Texans"

http://www.thenextright.com/ironman/macs-bad-picks

Evidently the theory herein is that making a woman the running mate will suddenly rope in all the disgruntled female Hillary supporters. There's a simple reason it won't work.

They aren't from Texas.

"Texas" now has an image among moderates and weakly aligned Democrats inseparable from "Bush".  Putting a Texan on the ticket this year allows the Democrats to change the subject from one they are drowning on ---Is Obama qualified?--to one that will drown us---does America want four more years of a Bush-style presidency?

Pro-choice women unsure of voting Obama will automatically equate their poor opinion of Bush with Hutchison,

This is why Hutchison is a worse pick than Ridge or Lieberman . Both could arguably move numbers in a swing state (I believe Lieberman created the 2000 chad fest by juicing Gore's numbers in Broward and PB Counties)   If TX is remotely competitive the election will be called before sundown.

As we've seen in recent years, mastering the art of getting  big numbers in TX doesn't prove much about appealing to voters in the other 49 states.  There simply isn't a blue collar white Catholic bloc in TX and the yuppie female independents are a far smaller piece of the electorate than places like MI and PA.

Besides, Hutchison's abortion record isn't a whole lot different than Ridge's (it is better than Lieberman's) so why won;t the same folks blackballing Ridge go ballistic over her pick?

I recall she is a bit of a squish on immigration as well, so we get Michelle Malkin and co. lobbing rocks at the pick.

A pick that alienates conseratives for sure with a very speculative chance of gaining offsetting moderate votes-----that will remind people of the President they can't wait to see leave office?

Doesn't compute for me 

I am concerned with much of the argument about V.P. picks. It seems sadly reminscent to me of the Miers debacle, where a host of well qualified  jurists had their names floated and then saw the shots come in (too old, too young,  too hard-line, wrong gender etc. ) So we saw the sad spectacle of the Bushies trying to pass off a close friend as a top level jurist--mostly because it appeared Harry Reid sorta didn't much mind her. 

The downside of punching holes in the rationale for Romney and Pawlenty is we might well get some second tier candidate whom the McCain team incorectly thinks is a good pick because they haven't been bashed lately--perhaps because the punditocracy, the party establishment and the blogosphere perceive the candidate as so unviable as to be unworthy of criticism.

We need to "Miers-proof" this process as well as critique the frontrunners. So here are my list of very lame dark horses---the type of picks that will put Mac in a deep hole he can;t dig out of .

Some of these people are great in their field. But they would not be of any use in getting Mac elected.

1. Lindsey Graham. No redeeming social value to this pick . At all.http://rightblog.zubrcom.net/ironman/the-worst-possible-mac-veep-pick

2.  Kay Bailey Hutchison  If we want a pro-choice candidate, a non Texan might have a better shot of trying to end up in the net vote dept. Much of America says "No New Texans"

3.  Haley Barbour A great example of politics being very unfair. One of the best Governors in America, but past life as a lobbyist and an accent you could cut with a fork, well... as I said, not fair, but.

4.Fred Smith of Fed Ex : You do not want to know how hated Fed Ex is amongst the union movement. Lots of working stiffs will covertly stiff Obama in the comfort of the polling place unless we throw a red flag like this at them. 

5. John Engler. Wife on Freddie Mac board. Since I expect them to be seeing Hank Paulson with the tin cup to start Q 4....nope.......   .

6. Jon Huntsman  the Mormon Governor nobody knows. UT is our best state already.

7. Joe Lieberman. One more time. He won't flip CT, but will flip out much of the base.

Let's air the dark horses now and get this out in the open. I do not want another "Miers moment" August 29.