SAN ANTONIO — If there was any doubt that Texans would witness a red-hot Republican race for governor, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison removed it Monday when she kicked off a five-day announcement tour and delivered her harshest attack ever on Gov. Rick Perry.
Returning to her native Gulf Coast to announce her bid for governor, she said Perry had overstayed his welcome with an administration marked by arrogance and “tragic” mistakes.
Using her former high school about 40 miles southeast of Houston as a backdrop, she also proposed limiting governors to two four-year terms. She called Perry — a fellow Republican — a “dedicated public servant” but otherwise laid into him. Perry, in office since 2000, is the longest-serving governor in Texas history.
Perry took over the remainder of former President George W. Bush’s second term as governor and has been elected to two four-year terms since. If he is re-elected in 2010 and completes his term, Perry will have held the job for 14 years.
“We can’t afford 14 years of one person appointing every state board, agency and commission,” Hutchison said. “It invites patronage. It tempts cronyism. And it has to stop, now.”
In a gymnasium appearance that drew about 150 supporters and the La Marque High School cheerleading squad — which Hutchison once belonged to — she delivered a broad and harsh critique of the Perry years and warned that Republicans would suffer up and down the ballot without a change in leadership.
Hutchison said Texas is awash in government debt, leads the nation in uninsured children and suffers from the highest property taxes in the country. Her highly critical speech underscored the bitter clash that the Republican primary for Texas governor is becoming. Hutchison had flirted with a gubernatorial run in 2005 but ultimately decided to stay in Washington — avoiding a race that GOP honchos feared would leave the party badly divided.
