| Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, a Republican, refused to rule out a run in any potential special election race should Kay "Will she or Won't she" Hutchison eventually resign.
It took three times for Brad Watson and Gromer Jeffer's with WFAA's Inside Politics to pull an answer from Leppert that didn't have your stomach queasy from all the political spin:
Opportunities and obstacles come up and if they come up I will deal with them. I am very happy with what I'm doing right now. We are making great progress in the City of Dallas and I think people recognize that. If the opportunity comes up then I'll look at it.
Clearly Leppert is making some of the same calculated assumptions that Mayor Bill White is making. Leppert is a popular Republican mayor of a major metropolitan county that has trended heavily Democratic since 2006. Leppert recently muscled through a sweeping Ethics reform package in the wake of former councilman Don Hill's corruption trial--the same corruption charges that now engulf State Representative Terri Hodge.
Leppert has momentum, and certainly has potential, to shave off quite a few votes in his favor in the North Texas region where his name identification is high. In a special election race with very low turnout numbers that could be just enough to pull him into a runoff. It is the same calculations the White campaign is making: a popular mayor from a major metropolitan area that has trended blue in the last few election cycles. Shave off enough votes in favor of Mayor White in a low turnout special election and it should be enough to catapult him into a runoff.
But again, all of these calculations are based on whether or not Kay "Will she or Won't she" Hutchison eventually resign her senate seat and the answer, as she indicated on Friday, is she will not. Based on this past week's Rasmussen poll showing KBH down 11 points to Perry less than four months away from a GOP primary election is a terrible spot to be in. However, it is indicative of the terrible campaign she has run for governor as well.
It may be intriguing for Leppert to consider a special election run, and I do believe he is giving it very serious thought, but he is a smart enough politician to know that I'm staying right where I am. Hutchison is the most deceptive, stick my finger in the air to figure out which way the political winds are blowing, type politician that we've ever seen. Leppert will position himself to launch a campaign should the opportunity arise, but ultimately it will be for nothing because Hutchison won't resign. |
