Jan
18
Written by:
Mark Lavergne
1/18/2010 5:05 PM
Kay Bailey Hutchison may now be finally doing at least some of what she has to do in order to beat Rick Perry. Whether scarcely one and a half months is enough time for her to actually pull it out is another question. She's recently come out with real policy proposals than can be translated into bills, and running some ads that actually have a little bite.
Ethics proposals
For one, she came out today with a set of proposals to reform ("bring more sunshine to" in her campaign's words) Texas government. Her ethics proposals include allowing special Legislative sessions to override vetoes (a proposal advanced by Sen. Jeff Wentworth [R-San Antonio] and Rep. Gary Elkins [R-Houston] in previous sessions); bringing more oversight to the Texas Enterprise Fund; more transparency in economic development efforts; also that she will not use holdovers, promising that she would announce reappointments within six weeks of the expiration of their term of office; imposing a $500 cap on how much lobby groups can spend on food and drinks (to wine and dine the powers that be); and limiting the governor to two terms.
Unlike Hutchison's transportation proposals, a bill could be written to enact every one of her ethics suggestions (although some can be done administratively), and every one of them is a veiled criticism of Perry.
Of course, the Perry campaign obliged with a response attacking Hutchison's credibility on ethical matters, arguing that she had unveiled a 28-point plan to reform Congress in 1993 but never actually introduced it once she became a U.S. Senator. Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner said that Hutchison had hired a new chief of staff who only a year earlier had been a lobbyist, rehashed attacks that she had pushed for earmarks for her husband, and, of course, that she had called for term limits for U.S. Senators, even though she is now serving her third.
Said Miner:
Sen. Hutchison has no credibility on term limits considering she promised to serve just two full terms in the Senate and then ran for a third. For Sen. Hutchison, term limits apply to everyone but herself.
Latest radio ad takes a bite
Meanwhile, on my way back to the office from lunch, I heard the latest ad from Kay Bailey Hutchison on 590 AM KLBJ. It was a conversation between a lady who owns a home in rural Texas and some engineer-type road-builder informing her that her home will be leveled to make room for a gas station along the foreign-owned toll road that will be cutting through the neighboring farmland.
Lady: But this is MY home!
Roadbuilder: And these are MY blueprints!
It was, in my opinion, probably the best ad that KBH's campaign has yet released -- a skillful satire of Perry's not-so-stellar reputation with farmers and other property rights enthusiasts. It is yet another Trans-Texas Corrdior-centric ad, but it is certainly better than her intended-to-be-chilling-but-just-plain-bland TV ads on the subject (the ones with the road sign) -- and it aired during Rush Limbaugh's show, when a lot of people are listening.