Washington, DC — From just a few informal conversations the past week with various folks in town and in Texas, the looming ’06 intra-party primary race between Texas Governor Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is starting to finally get more chatter, and deservedly so.
This is a great and interesting race to watch from the standpoint of contrasts, beyond just the obvious gender difference: stark contrast in style, backgrounds and political bases — west texas vs. dallas/ft. worth metro.
There are also plenty of very experienced political gunslingers around for this contest if Kay proceeds to primary Rick. Among them: Dave Carney, Dave Beckwith, Reggie Bashur, David Weeks and many others.
A well known TX GOP operative told DCspectator this evening that there is a small yet discernible boomlet developing in TX GOP circles that Kay is going to kick Perry’s ass. Hmmmm… I’m skeptical. While Kay Bailey is the state’s most popular politician, according to a variety of surveys, it’s far too premature to evaluate what may happen in a high stakes, high visibility gop primary. 
As John Kerry and so many other Senators have found, a Senate voting record is a target rich environment — especially in a GOP gubernatorial primary context in which you can make the “Washington politician” charge stick in all the wrong (good) ways: taxes, spending, flip flopping and inflammatory votes on issues like abortion and gay rights. Fumbling, waffling or mishandling either of these two seminal hot button social issues can be fatal in a gop primary.
If you end up as “the liberal” in the race you will lose the primary. period.
From a full disclosure perspective, i worked on behalf of Kay’s ’93 Senate campaign via the Republican National Committee (RNC).
This race definitely merits more reporting and analysis. This is gonna be hot. Stay tuned.