Rick leads Kay in latest Poll, but 45% are Undecided

Yesterday's big news was the release of the Texas Lyceum Poll on the upcoming Texas gubernatorial race. The Dallas Morning News included an AP report that highlighted the results of the poll:

A new poll shows Gov. Rick Perry is leading his major primary challenger, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, in his 2010 re-election campaign.

The Texas Lyceum Poll released Wednesday also found many Texans aren't paying much attention to next year's elections yet.

The poll found Perry backed by 33 percent of those polled, while Hutchison had 21 percent. Some 45 percent of Texans were undecided.

On the Democratic side, 80 percent of those polled were undecided, but humorist Kinky Friedman had 10 perecent, followed by former ambassador Tom Schieffer with 6 percent. Schieffer formally launches his campaign on Wednesday.

The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Its obvious that with nearly 45% of Texans undecided on this race, the results of this poll shouldn't cause a party at Rick's re-election headquarters. There's still a lot of campaigning to do between now and election day.

We already know that Governor Perry's plan is to attack Senator Hutchison as a "Washington outsider" who is out of touch with us Texans. We're still waiting for the KBH campaign to crankup in full gear. As both campaigns start to hit full throttle, you'll see more postings here at KVR.

AP: Texas race for gov. a Republican slugfest

Kelley Shannon at the Associated Press captured in one word what the upcoming Republican gubernatorial race is turning out to be so far, a "slugfest".

Shannon's article delves into state of fundraising for both campaigns.

Even if Perry trails in money this summer — a real possibility because he couldn't accept donations all spring but Hutchison could — he'll likely catch up quickly because of established donors who are willing to give him as much as $100,000 per four-year term, said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

"This is a race that will see larger amounts of money spent in the primary, maybe, than in the general election. It's going to be a slugfest between Perry and Hutchison," Jillson said.

Shannon's article continues, with spokespersons from both campaigns.

Hutchison held an early money lead at the start of this year, with nearly $8 million to Perry's $6.6 million in the bank. Most of Hutchison's total was transferred from her federal campaign account.

Since then, she's been working on more state fundraising. She named John Nau, a Houston businessman and former Perry backer, as her finance chairman. She sent out a fundraising letter that sounded the national Republican theme but referred to Perry in saying, "We simply can't afford this type of leadership negatively defining our party for four more years."

Hutchison is stepping up complaints that the two-term governor is showing "hypocrisy" on issues ranging from property rights to the state's business tax.

"Real leaders don't grandstand on a temporary fix to the problem of their own making. This is a new height of hypocrisy even for Rick Perry," Hutchison spokesman Hans Klingler said this month when Perry signed a law revising the business tax that he backed when it was crafted.

Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the Hutchison accusations ring hollow.

"It's easy to criticize when you've been on the sidelines," Miner said. Perry's camp will continue to point out Hutchison's long history in Washington and link her to federal bailouts and deficit spending, Miner said.

"We'll continue to highlight the differences between someone who's been in Washington and someone like the governor who's been in Texas working to improve the lives of all Texans," Miner said.

So the Parry camp continues down the destructive path of claiming Senator Hutchison is a 'Washington outsider' and some kind of federal government cowgirl. So far, it may be playing out okay on talk radio, but as Kay's campaign kicks into full throttle, we won't be surprised to see her talking about how out of touch Perry with reality.

Kay says Perry is hurting the Republican party

Senator Hutchison was on Hardball last night. If you missed her on MSNBC last night, no worries, Todd Gillman at the Dallas Morning News provided a summary in this morning's Trail Blazers Blog:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was on Hardball last night on MSNBC, talking mainly about Iran and President Obama's latest posture there. But Chris Matthews asked her about the Texas governor's race, too - specifically, whether she thinks she can beat Gov. Rick Perry, given her "centrist conservative views" and the fact that he's a "character... who's talked about secession from the union, who now enjoys... the endorsement of Sarah Palin, who, for whatever crazy reason, has gotten herself involved in Texas politics?

Short answer from Hutchison: "Yes."

She invoked Ronald Reagan - the big tent part, not the 11th Commandment part.

"I'm a conservative. I want the party to be growing and building and bringing people into our ideas by welcoming them into the party, by holding to our principles, while we say, here are what we believe, and we know you can't agree on 100 percent of everything, but we can form a party around basic principles of freedom, of lower taxes, of entrepreneurship and -- and the American spirit. We can build a party around that. And we can argue about differences that we might have, but we should not repel people from the party. And that's what I think has happened with Governor Perry, in some instances."