I am hearing that Senator Hutchison has decided not to resign from the United States Senate to pursue her bid for Governor of Texas.

A statement is coming shortly. My understanding is that she will pursue the race for Governor still, but I’m told this is a recognition that she probably can’t make it out of the primary.

I’m told a statement is forthcoming.

By the way, this move keeps Ted Cruz from running for Attorney General and keeps Michael Williams out of the Senate. Sucks for the conservative movement across the board.

Thanks Kay!

Texans have an outstanding opportunity in the coming year to make a greater impact on the national stage than any other state.

Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, an African American who happens to be an outstanding, uncompromising conservative, will on the ballot for the United States Senate.

There are a number of good men running for the Senate in Texas, and most are varying degrees of conservative. But Michael Williams is set apart from the pack by being extraordinarily articulate, unyielding in his conservatism, unfailing in his ability to relate conservative ideals through an inspiring life story, and able to further set himself apart by virtue of being the rarest of political animals — an electable African American conservative Republican.

For years and years the media has resisted ever mentioning the fact that there are conservatives who are not white. It’s worked to the Democrats advantage. Now, in Florida, the media is confronted with Marco Rubio and in Texas with Michael Williams. If either were elected to the Senate, the media would have a much harder time ignoring that fact.

But, ignore Williams’ race. It is an added selling point to combat a media narrative, but Michael Williams is not defined by his race. He is defined by his conservatism. He is defined by his ability to connect with both small town America and a thriving urban industrial America. Through his life story, Michael Williams gets how liberalism has corroded America and how conservatism can transform America, making it shine ever more brightly on the Hill.

Texas, for its own good and the good of the whole country, should take a long hard look at Michael Williams and put him in the Senate. He’d be a fresh face and a fresh voice in a tired old boys club where folks go along to get along.

More importantly, Rick Perry, if he is truly a conservative’s conservative, has a chance to meaningfully impact American politics and the future of American conservatism by putting MIchael Williams in the Senate.

Kay Bailey Hutchison intends to resign. If Hutchison will go on and do it instead of dragging her heels, Perry could appoint Michael Williams to the Senate, automatically making Williams the front runner for next year. Perry and Hutchison, despite their clashes and opposing interests, should have the good of Texas and the country in common. They should make sure Michael Williams is Texas’ next United States Senator. And if not them? The good people of Texas should unfailingly support Commissioner Michael Williams.

Diane Feinstein is notorious for supporting greater funding for China and cooperation with Chicom military authorities because, in part, her husband makes millions of dollars dealing with China.

It’s not just China. Feinstein has made out like a bandit from the Iraq War too.

As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.

That’s what happens when you’ve been in the United States Senate for 17 years. Who else has been in the United States Senate for 17 years? Kay Bailey Hutchison. And guess what? Hutchison looks like she could be sending taxpayer dollars to her husband just as much as Diane Feinstein:

In 2007, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison boasted how she helped secure $700 million in federal funding to expand a mass transit line in Dallas. But here’s what she forgot to tell you: The law firm of her husband, Ray Hutchison, worked on the bond financing for the same project, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in hourly fees.

In the long run-up before Hutchison officially announced her candidacy for governor this week, the popular GOP lawmaker has fended off criticism that as a member of the Senate appropriations committee, she helped dole out money to her husband’s deep-pocketed municipal clients.

That may be how they do things in Washington after 17 years of living there, but that’s now how they do things in Texas. The Washington way is not the Texas way, but that’s all Kay knows and that’s why she needs to be defeated.

I find some of the rhetoric going on between Senator Hutchison and Governor Perry to be already a bit harsh, so here are the bare bones of the story:

Hutchison told WBAP-AM (820) host Mark Davis that she would officially kick-off her campaign in August.

“Formal announcement: I am in. Then the actual leaving of the Senate will be sometime — October, November — that, in that time frame,” she said.

It was her most definitive statement yet that she would leave the Senate in the middle of her third term.

This being a Senate seat, there will be an appointment made by the Governor, followed by a special election for the remaining two years of Senator Hutchison’s term.  As the disclaimer below makes clear, my recommendation for Governor Perry is to appoint Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams for the position, on the grounds that Williams is a). a solid conservative; b). prepared (thanks to his role as Railroad Commissioner*) to be a powerful voice on energy policy; and c). actively running for the spot.  Oh, and d). he’ll be talking at the RS Gathering. 

Read More →

Yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave his semi-annual report on monetary policy and the economy to the Senate Banking Committee. With the hot Beltway topic being the health care overhaul President Obama is so desperate to get passed and signed before more people find out what the effects of such a policy will really be, a few Senators had questions for the Chairman about the fiscal implications of the three dueling health care bills being written in the House and Senate, all of which have been criticized by elected Democrats and the director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office alike for being costly expansions of government that will do nothing to reduce the cost of health care or to cover the millions of American uninsured.

At that hearing, Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison made this spot-on comment:

[O]ne thing we’re trying to do is just slow this down enough that we can find the information and have the best facts that we can. And setting an arbitrary August deadline seems to many of us to be very unwise because so much could happen that would be irreversible if we really do change our health care system to this extent with the costs and in a hard economic time, anyway.

And many of us are concerned, as well, that employers are going to be encouraged to just drop health care coverage, pay the fine, and let people go into the public system, which then becomes a bigger burden on the government, but also the beginning of rationed health care, in many views.

So I thank you for saying that we ought to be very careful before we do add more entitlements to our health care system, and I hope you will work with us, as we are able to get more and more information about the — the real long-term consequences.

Below the fold, a couple more noteworthy points from Hutchison and Evan Bayh (D-IN), as well as Bernanke’s noteworthy answers.

Read More →

Sen. John Cornyn is worried that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is going to retire early this fall to run for Governor, but I’m missing the problem here (via Political Wire):

“My guess,” he told Texas reporters at his Senate office today, is that Hutchison will resign “this fall sometime.”

That would allow Perry to appoint an interim senator and allow a special election to take place in May 2010 instead of this November (which would happen if she resigned this spring or summer).

It seems pretty simple:

• Hutchison resigns.
• Governor Perry appoints Texas Railroad Commissioner* Michael Williams to be interim Senator.
• Williams wins the special election.

Come on, Senator Cornyn. This isn’t exactly rocket science.

Moe Lane

Read More →

Lone Star Times reports that U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s website has posted a copy of a Texarkana Gazette editorial mocking Gov. Rick Perry for having received Sarah Palin’s endorsement:

Palin has a certain cachet among conservatives. … But Lord, have mercy, she is an outsider with an opinion about Texas politics and government. And she sounds like the Yankee she is, if we use the definition that Yankees come from north of the Red River.

If Perry relies too heavily on Palin, he may find himself with a lot of time to watch Russians from her front porch come January 2011.

Read More →