Rick Perry seeks 3rd term in Texas

In a high-stakes Texas shootout with national implications, conservative champion Gov. Rick Perry is seeking an unprecedented third full term this fall, while Democrats tout former Houston Mayor Bill White as their best hope in years for a breakthrough victory in the nation’s fastest-growing big state.

With the winner likely to be a rising star on the national political stage, the two have already taken to exchanging accusations about their respective resumes.

To hear the White camp tell it, Mr. Perry, a favorite of Republican conservatives since taking over from then-Gov. George W. Bush in 2000, is an overly ambitious presidential wannabe and a knee-jerk extension of his party’s “extremist” wing.

“People want somebody who will shoot straight - not just somebody who is the voice of one wing of one party, or who is using the governor’s office to run for some other office,” Mr. White said last week in a Dallas Morning News interview.

To hear the Perry camp tell it, Mr. White, a deputy energy secretary under President Clinton and former three-term mayor of one of the country’s more conservative cities is “a frustrated liberal trial lawyer seeking any office to occupy,” in the words of Perry consultant Dave Carney.

The outcome of the Nov. 2 contest is likely to be a key indicator for beleaguered Democrats who are hoping to halt the momentum of recent Republican electoral triumphs in blue states such as New Jersey and Massachusetts and avoid a major blowout in the midterm elections.

The governor clearly hopes to tie unpopular Obama administration policies to Mr. White and other Democratic candidates on the ballot this fall.

The Washington Times has learned that, Mr. Perry, working from a telephone list of 150,000 voters in four targeted districts, will host a last-minute “tele-town hall” on Thursday.

The aim is to urge independent voters in the state to demand their representatives vote against Mr. Obama’s signature health care overhaul plan when the crucial House floor vote comes up in the coming days.

The targeted Democrats are Reps. Silvestre Reyes, Henry Cuellar, Solomon P. Ortiz and Ciro D. Rodriguez. With an extremely close vote predicted, turning even one Democratic member could sink the measure in the House.

The Texas gubernatorial contest pits two of the state’s most potent vote-getters.

Both Mr. Perry and Mr. White boast a 54 percent approval rating. Despite Texas’ red state reputation, Mr. Perry leads Mr. White by only six percentage points in the latest Rasmussen poll, with White voters marginally more enthusiastic about their candidate.

Raising the stakes even higher, the next Texas governor will play a critical role in the state’s redistricting process, with the 2010 census projected to give the state four new seats in the House of Representatives, up from the current 32.

The contest was bound to attract outsized attention because Texas is simply too big to be messed with or ignored. Already having 12 percent of the nation’s population, it is adding residents at a clip faster than any other large state.

Mr. Perry can point to a state economy that has prospered in the midst of a deep national recession, as well as an impressive political machine that knocked out challenger Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison - a favorite of the state party’s more moderate establishment - in a tough Republican primary earlier this month.

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