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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Texas’s Perry Wins Republican Primary as Hutchison Concedes March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Texas Governor Rick Perry, who led lawmakers in closing a 2003 budget deficit, won the Republican primary after U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison conceded last night. Republican voters in the second most-populous U.S. state chose Perry, 59, the longest-serving governor in Texas history, by a margin of about 51 percent to 31 percent, against Hutchison, with 51 percent of precincts reporting, according to returns posted on the Secretary of State’s Web site. Debra Medina, 47, a Tea Party movement activist, won 18 percent of the Republican vote. The winner needed more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff. Hutchison, 66, offered Perry her support in her televised remarks. Perry will face former Houston Mayor Bill White in the Nov. 2 general election. White, 55, won the Democratic primary with 76 percent of the vote to 12 percent for Houston business owner Farouk Shami, 67, with 51 percent of precincts reporting. “It allows Perry to look forward to the general election with momentum on his side,” said John R. Todd, chair of the political science department at the University of North Texas in Denton, before the results were announced. “It also makes it appear that Perry was right about what the voters of Texas want.” The primary took place as the state prepares to confront a spending gap that may swell to $10 billion. Texas’s sales-tax revenue began to drop a year ago amid the worst recession since the 1930s. The state may have to tap its reserve fund for the first time in five years to bridge the first deficit since 2003, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst said in an interview last month. Credit Rating Standard & Poor’s cited the $8 billion fund as a strength when it lifted Texas’s rating in August by one level to the second-highest ranking. Accessing the reserve requires a two- thirds vote from both houses of the Legislature. Sales tax, which generates half the state’s revenue, declined 13 percent in the first quarter of the fiscal year that began Sept. 1, according to the Texas comptroller’s office. Perry and Hutchison gave short shrift in their campaigns to the budget crisis the state will face when the Legislature convenes to draw up the next two-year spending plan, said Calvin Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, in an interview before the vote. The Republican primary capped political attacks that began before Hutchison, who won re-election to the U.S. Senate by the largest margins in state history, announced her challenge in August. Perry replaced George W. Bush after he was elected president in 2000. Candidates’ Strategy Perry painted Hutchison as a Washington insider who has overseen an increase in the federal deficit, while Hutchison portrayed Perry as someone who has been in office too long. “This election was about Texans sending a message to Washington: stop spending our money,” Perry told supporters in televised remarks from his election night celebration. White governed Houston with balanced budgets and surpluses and cut taxes five years in a row, Katy Bacon, a campaign spokeswoman, said before the vote. White has narrowed the gap with Perry in polling for a general election, according to a survey of 1,200 likely voters conducted on Feb. 22 by Asbury Park, New Jersey-based Rasmussen Reports LLC. Perry leads 47 percent to White’s 41 percent, with 5 percent favoring another candidate and 7 percent undecided. At the beginning of the month Perry led White 48 percent to 39 percent. “This is the year of the angry voter and I don’t think it is clear that Perry wins the governorship just because he wins the primary,” said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, before the vote. - To contact the reporter on this story: Darrell Preston in Dallas at dpreston@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.ne
Poster Comment: I was afraid of this after Debra Medina shot both feet off in two different interviews. Of course I was hoping that she could make it into a runoff with the one world charlatan (and that applies to both Perry and Hutchinson). But she was ambushed by a Perry supporter and gave a bad answer. And then compounded it in an interview with another scam artist.
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#2. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
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Sickening.
#5. To: Cynicom (#3)
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