By: Jonathan Martin
DRIFTWOOD, Texas – Gov. Rick Perry’s 21-point thrashing of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary offers the most vivid illustration yet of the potency of an anti-Washington message in an already volatile political environment.
Perry, who will now run for his third full term against former Houston Mayor Bill White, lashed Hutchison as an earmark-and-bailout-loving Beltway creature while railing against a Democratic president he portrayed as a socialist bent on trampling states’ rights.
Yet the same anti-Washington sentiment that fueled Perry’s success failed to surge down the ballot as every House incumbent on the ballot won re-nomination without even the bother of a runoff.
So just what did the results from Texas’s primary reveal? Here are four key take-aways from the Lone Star State:
Could Rick Perry be the Tea Party standard bearer in 2012?
In an interview with POLITICO Monday, Perry insisted that he would not mount a White House bid.
“I’m really interested in who’s going to be the next president,” he said, before quickly adding: “I have no interest in it being me in any form or fashion.”
Yet as he claimed victory here Tuesday night, Perry’s message seemed as tailored for national GOP primary voters as Texas’s general electorate.
Read more at Politico
