In the debate over Sonia Sotomayor and Hispanic voters, one state worries Republicans the most. Texas, the country's second-largest state, has one of the fastest-growing Hispanic populations and could, within a decade, become a Democratic stronghold once again.
At least, that's the hope of Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine, who announced Monday that the DNC will hold its autumn meeting deep in the heart of Texas. And that seems to be the fear of Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the first Senate Republican to scold Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich for calling Sotomayor a "racist."
For Hutchison, the race is as much about the future of the GOP as it is about the future of Texas.
It's with that backdrop that the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary is heating up in the Lone Star State, a tight race between Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison that has all the trappings of a national showdown between the two rival factions of a party at a crossroads. "It's inevitable that this race will become a critical turning point in the battle for the soul of the Republican Party," said Adam Schiffer, a political science professor at Texas Christian University. "Everyone's going to weigh in, if they haven't already."
In one corner stands Perry, the two-term incumbent who has sought to rally conservatives and anti-Washington, populist types with a solid diet of red-meat bravado. One day, he's headlining a tax day "Tea Party" and threatening to secede. Next, his campaign adviser is warning that if the GOP broadens its tent too much it risks becoming a "whorehouse." He's already been endorsed by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), among others.
"God bless Rush Limbaugh!" Perry exclaimed Friday at an Austin fundraiser, beaming as he presented the radio talk-show host with an "honorary Texan" certificate. (If you missed all the fun, don't worry. You can watch the video on Perry's campaign Web site.)
In the other corner stands Hutchison, who recently has become less restrained in criticizing the man she's abandoning a Senate seat to challenge. For her, the race is as much about the future of the GOP as it is about the future of Texas. "Republican voters have to decide whether they want to have a [gubernatorial] nominee who is going to rejuvenate our party and provide the leadership for Texas, or a nominee who will continue on this harsh rhetoric course of narrowing our base and acting like if you don't agree on every issue, you aren't conservative and should not be Republican," Hutchison said last week in an interview. "That's not me. I reject that."
She said the key distinction between herself and Perry is not ideology, it's the way she chooses to communicate her brand of conservatism. "I'm not a moderate. I'm a conservative," she said. "But I'm called a moderate, not because of my voting record but because I speak in a tone that is not harsh and doesn't say 'I don't want you to be Republican if you don't agree with me on every issue.' I understand that there are people who disagree but want to be Republicans and want the basic principles that we provide."
Perry doesn't have to vote on Sotomayor, of course, but Hutchison does. Actually, she already has; she opposed Sotomayor's appeals court nomination in 1998. But the senator has steered clear of the more heated rhetoric of Perry's friend Limbaugh, going only so far as to call the judge's record "troubling."
At least one Texas Republican who has experienced Democrats' rising fortunes firsthand is urging Hutchison to tread very carefully. "In an ideal world, you'd judge Supreme Court nominees on their merits, but this is a less than ideal world," said former Rep. Henry Bonilla (R), who lost his re-election bid in 2006 and has endorsed Hutchison for governor. "Republicans should understand that the Hispanic factor is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. If we as a party don't understand how to communicate effectively with Hispanic constituents, nothing else we do will matter. The demographic is staring us in the face."
All hope isn't lost for Republicans. As Schiffer notes, Mexican Americans in Texas "are still a fairly malleable sub-group;" their party allegiances are hardly set in stone. Perry's predecessor won two gubernatorial races in the 1990s by drawing support from this group of voters. That, of course, was George W. Bush.
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