State Government

Kay Bailey Hutchison rebounded in the most recent poll from Rasmussen Reports, but one of Gov. Rick Perry’s hottest arguments rests on the rhetoric of “I’m from Austin; she’s from Washington.” And while the latest polling has the two gubernatorial candidates locked in a tight race, it’s a contest that initially — almost a year ago — was polling strongly in Hutchison’s favor.

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry gave Texas border sheriffs another $2 million for a virtual border wall of web cameras that in its first full year failed to meet nearly every law enforcement goal his office originally set.

It’s the Labor Day break, a traditional starting point for political adventurers (as opposed to explorers) who will face the judgment of primary voters in six months.

Texas Republicans are waiting to see what Kay will do. Everybody’s been talking about it for months and months.

After exploratory dry runs in 2002 and 2006, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison formally announced her bid for governor of Texas before a sparse crowd in La Marque, starting a 19-stop, week-long tour of the state with a series of broadsides at the incumbent and a promise to return the state to Republican glory.

Kay Bailey Hutchison’s political two-step gets under way next week with an 18-city tour — starting in her old high school in La Marque — to announce that she’ll seek the Republican nomination for governor against an incumbent who’s held the job longer than anyone in state history.