07.29.09
Hutchison takes a hard right turn
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison after seeing her slipping in the polls in the upcoming governor’s race has decided to feed the beast of the far right GOP primary voter. She has decided to vote against Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States. Her vote against is based on Sotomayor’s position on one of the GOP’s 3G’s – the guns section of the Gods, guns and gays, in the GOP platform. Read her statement here.
Here’s the statement from TDP chair Boyd Ritchie:
“The appointment of a Supreme Court nominee should be about that person’s qualifications – not about Republican primary politics. Unfortunately, Sen. Hutchison is more concerned with making politically motivated decisions to compete with Gov. Perry for Republican primary voters than in doing what’s right.”
And as Kuff shows as she decries Gov. Perry’s leadership Hutchison is doing much more following than leading.
So KBH will follow Cornyn’s lead on Sotomayor just as she’s followed Rick Perry’s lead on health care and the economy. Has this woman ever had an original thought in her life? Maybe her latest campaign manager will help her come up with one. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.
Those poll numbers must be really bad because she even went so far as to have a sit down with the teabaggers in her office. Well there goes any chance Texans had of a moderate GOP candidate emerging after the primary. It sure would be to have a Democratic candidate for governor pointing all of this out.
[UPDATE]: More on KBH’s hard right from First Read:
Considering that Rick Perry has established a lead in the polls as he has repeatedly criticized the Obama administration, it wasn’t very likely that Hutchison would vote for the president’s first appointee to the Supreme Court. While Hutchison is going to try to be more moderate than Perry on issues such as the unemployment stimulus dollars and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, I expect she will use the gun issue over and over to remind voters that she’s more a conservative than a moderate.
Also, it is worth noting that Hutchison voted against Sotomayor for the Court of Appeals long before she was in this primary fight for governor.
Evan Smith says he thinks she would have voted for Sotomayor if she weren’t running against Perry: “The question for her — and her new team — is, How do you grow the primary vote when you spend all your time competing for the base? If she’s making a case for herself as a pragmatic alternative to the status quo, I haven’t heard it.”
[UPDATE]: Here’s another take on it, A Missed Opportunity.
Now that Hutch has announced she will vote against Judge Sotomayor, Lone Star State Dems have an excellent opportunity to fully engage the state’s growing Latino vote. National Latino organizations are pretty much united in supporting Judge Sotomayor. Dems need to step forward and take full advantage of the current political situation. Check it out. Of course, other than issuing press releases, I don’t think the Lone Star State Dems are going to do anything else to engage the Latino vote.
It is pretty clear that Hutch is now going all out to appeal to GOP right wingers in order to win next year’s GOP Guv Primary so voting against a historical appointment isn’t too much of a big deal to her even in a state with close to 40% of its people Latino. The conversation behind closed doors in Hutch’s office probably went like this: From one of her GOP advisers – “Senator, if you vote for Judge Sotomayor, Guv Dude is going to hang this “wise Latina” around your neck for the next seven months. You will be toast.” From Hutch – “But won’t I alienate Latino voters in the Fall of 2010?” From her GOP advisers – “We will worry about that if we get by Guv Dude. Besides, there is no evidence that the Lone Star State Dems are going to launch a major Latino voter outreach effort anytime soon and so far their candidates for Guv don’t look like they will excite the base.”
No se puede! What else is new!
It would be nice to have some targeted ads running and/or outreach on this issue, hitting the GOP hard in Texas, for a couple of weeks.