A GREAT TIME TO BE A REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR:

Rick Perry wins big; 2012 run? (JONATHAN MARTIN, 3/3/10, Politico)

Gov. Rick Perry’s 21-point thrashing of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary offers the most vivid illustration yet of the potency of an anti-Washington message in an already volatile political environment.

Perry, who will now run for his third full term against former Houston Mayor Bill White, lashed Hutchison as an earmark-and-bailout-loving Beltway creature while railing against a Democratic president he portrayed as a socialist bent on trampling states’ rights.

Yet the same anti-Washington sentiment that fueled Perry’s success failed to surge down the ballot as every House incumbent on the ballot won re-nomination without even the bother of a runoff.

Is there room in the Oval for another helping of dread?

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 3, 2010 6:51 AM