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AUSTIN -- Suddenly, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is on the stump and on a mission to round up support for a 2010 run for governor against longtime incumbent Rick Perry.
And Perry, an aggressive campaigner who's never lost an election, is taking her challenge seriously. He's using his bully pulpit while the Texas Legislature is in session to push new proposals, showcase his record and shore up support among social conservatives in the Republican base.
A full year before the GOP primary, the race is on.
"I think that we have seen negative campaigns run by Governor Perry in the past," Hutchison said before gathering her supporters last week at a daylong strategy session in Austin. "I think that's why we need new leadership. I think people are looking for positive, happy warriors. And I'm a positive, happy warrior."
She said she would formally announce her candidacy this summer.
The hard-charging Perry seems to revel in the re-election fight, though he won't talk much about Hutchison and keeps suggesting that she may not run at all. He says he wants to keep concentrating on the legislative session.
"Until I get a filed candidate against me, I'd just as soon not have to go take the time to be dealing with that," Perry said.
But he is dealing with it. Perry fired up hundreds at an anti-abortion rally at the Capitol the same day as Hutchsion's strategy session, Jan. 24, a cold, blustery day when even his overcoat couldn't keep the chill away. He sat through a number of speeches and songs following his own remarks and lingered to work the crowd afterward.
Hutchison has formed an "exploratory committee" for a run for governor. However, the fundraising disclosures she must file with the Texas Ethics Commission are the same as those for a committed candidate. Candidates do not have to file party paperwork to get on the primary ballot until January 2010.
Both Hutchison and Perry have amassed millions of dollars to spend on the GOP primary, which may well determine the next governor. A Democratic candidate has not yet emerged. Two of the party's biggest names -- former Comptroller John Sharp and Houston Mayor Bill White -- say they plan to run for Hutchison's Senate seat when she steps down.
The governor likes to leave campaign attacks to his aides. His spokesman dubbed Hutchison "Kay Bailout" for her support of the first federal bailout package of the financial industry. Perry frequently chastises the federal government for increased spending, lack of action on border security and slow response to hurricanes. That indirectly casts Hutchison as part of out-of-touch Washington, D.C.
"It looks like he's running a very strong race, but of course he's just begun to fight," said political science professor Jerry Polinard of the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg. "He's managed to put himself into the public eye quite a bit in the last couple of months."
Only 39 percent of Texas' general election voters backed Perry in 2006, but it was enough to put him on top in the four-way race. Perry's goal for the moment is to court the social conservatives who are his traditional backers and reliable Texas Republican primary voters, Polinard said.
"He's touching all the bases," Polinard said, adding that Hutchison had work to do with the party faithful. Although Hutchison is highly popular in Texas, some conservatives have not liked her support for some abortion rights and for embryonic stem cell research. "In terms of the hard-core base of the party, she's considered to be somewhat soft."
