by Art Kelly
 
Conservative Texas Governor Rick Perry won re-nomination in the Republican Primary, trouncing moderate Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson and libertarian Debra Medina.
 
The final tallies were:
 
Perry 758,222  (51.1%)
Hutchinson 450,196  (30.3%)
Medina 275,693  (18.6%)
 
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post characterized the results as a severe blow to President Bush and his entire team, especially Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, who all strongly backed Hutchison.
 
Joe Holley of the Houston Chronicle traced how Perry, who is now served as governor longer than anyone else in Texas history, transformed himself from a beleaguered incumbent into a big winner by embracing the Tea Party Movement:
 
“What Hutchison didn't realize this time a year ago was that her fate may well have been sealed by Tax Day, April 15, 2009, when Perry spoke at Tea Party rallies in Houston, Dallas, and Austin and suggested — merely suggested — that Texas might have reason to secede from the union…
 
“Signaling his sympathy with the wave of anti-Washington, anti-Obama animus sweeping Texas and the country — animus fueled by the Tea Partiers — Perry effectively tagged his fellow Republican as a creature of Washington after her 16 years in the Senate. She never recovered from the anti-Washington barrage.”
 
Perry’s TV ads always referred to “Senator Hutchison,” with the title “Senator” used as a pejorative.  Among especially criticized her votes for bailouts and her many earmarks in appropriations bills.
 
The Chronicle’s Rick Casey also provided a postmortem:
 
“Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison committed the cardinal sin of rookie candidates.  She let her opponent define her… So when Rick Perry and his crew started defining her as the embodiment of the worst aspects of Washington, she was totally unprepared…
 
“Then, unbelievably, she brought in her first high-profile endorser, Dick Cheney.  It's hard to imagine a worse choice. Cheney too had become a Washington politician — one many conservatives remember as the highest-ranking Republican ever to say that deficits don't matter.”
 
In the general election, Perry will face former Houston mayor Bill White, who served in the Clinton Administration and was chairman of the Texas Democratic Party.  White won his party’s nomination with 76% against six opponents.  He received 516,621 votes.
 
Tea Party candidates had some other successes in the Texas Republican Primary.
 
Don Sumners, who ran on the slogan, “I was Tea Party before Tea Party was cool,” defeated incumbent Harris County (Houston) Tax Assessor-Collector Leo Vasquez, 71,822 (56.9%) to 54,491 (43.1%).
 
And David Simpson unseated longtime State Representative Tommy Merritt of Longview, 7,852 (52.9%) to 6,996 (47.1%).
 
But Tea Party candidates lost badly in races against incumbent Republican Congressmen, including Ron Paul, who recently won the straw vote for president at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):
 
Ron Paul 45,947  (80.8%)
Tim Graney 5,536  (9.7%)
John Gay 3,003  (5.3%)
Gerald Wall 2,402  (4.2%)
 
There could be two GOP candidates for president from the Lone Star State in 2012.
 
The Post’s Chris Cillizza, Politico.com’s Jonathan Martin , and Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka all speculate that Perry could also run.