December 16, 2005

Senator Launches New Leadership Team
Co-Chaired by George P. Bush and Others

Hutchison 2020 Organization Aims to Recruit Young
Texans to Join Forces in Shaping Future State Policy

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is on the lookout for young Texans who want to make a difference for a new organization that she hopes to build into a team of leaders that will shape the state's agenda for the years to come and future generations.

The state's senior U.S. Senate member is in the process of forming the KBH Leadership 2020 Team, which will be co-chaired in the infant stages by a diverse group of individuals including George P. Bush, who's President George W. Bush's nephew and Florida Governor Jeb Bush's oldest son. The co-chairs also include Air Force Captain Scott F. O'Grady, former Public Utility Commission chair Rebecca A. Klien and Albert Myers of Houston.

In a letter announcing the leadership team effort, Hutchison said Texans between the ages of 21 and 45 would be recruited for the statewide organization, which plans to "provide the stewardship and vision necessary to lead our state and our nation.

While most if not all of the co-chairs are Republicans, the senator said the new group will be open to "all Texans who share a desire for both action and vision." The leadership team is expected to be geared more toward the development of policy than campaign politics. It's apparently not part of an effort that's been the subject of still-unsubstantiated speculation about a Hutchison fundraising operation that would ostensibly be similar to the current president's Pioneers and Rangers.

Hutchison launched the leadership team a few months after deciding to seek re-election rather than running for governor in 2006. While Hutchison hasn't ruled out a gubernatorial bid in 2010, close associates say she's focused now on the campaign for a second six-year term in the Senate to which she was first elected in 1993. The senator's supporters, nonetheless, are hoping she will be able to win re-election without having to dip too deeply into a campaign account that has a $7.4 million surplus in it now. Hutchison so far is unopposed in the Republican primary with the filing deadline two weeks away. Two Democrats - Vinson & Elkins lawyer Barbara Ann Radnofsky and Darrel Reece Hunter of Amarillo - have filed for the U.S. Senate race.

The Democratic primary winner will face a major uphill battle in the general election if recent polls gauging Hutchison's support among Texans are a accurate. A Survey USA poll released this week showed Hutchison with a 60 percent favorable rating in Texas and higher approval among both Republicans and Democrats than Governor Rick Perry, who she'd considered challenging in next year's primary competition. In a Survey USA poll three weeks earlier, Perry was viewed favorably by 47 percent of 400 Texas adults surveyed and negatively by another 47 percent. The number of Texans surveyed who approved of the job Hutchison was doing was twice as high as those who saw her in an unfavorable light.

While 69 percent of the Republicans contacted in mid-November approved of the job Perry was doing, 81 percent of the sample in the U.S. Senate survey gave thumbs up to Hutchison's performance during the past month. Hutchison received good marks from 46 percent of the Democrats in the Survey USA poll compared to 28 percent support from Democrats that Perry had three weeks ago. The Survey USA polls that inquired about Perry and Hutchison, however, were based on separate samples, which make their respective findings less valid for comparative purposes.

A recent Texas Poll showed Hutchison with a 70 percent approval rating while Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn had the second highest favorables at 54 percent. Perry and U.S. Senator John Cornyn both were viewed favorably by 49 percent in the Texas Poll. In an October survey of 403 likely Democratic voters conducted by Hamilton, Beattie & Staff for the Texas Credit Union League, Hutchison received a favorable rating from 53 percent of the Democrats.

The senator's new leadership group with its open-door policy to members of both parties hopes to harness the widespread support into a force that has the potential to be similar to an effort that the late John Tower initiated when he was in the U.S. Senate as a way to prepare Texas to meet the challenges it would face as it evolved into a two-party state after a century of domination by Democrats. The new group, while initially designed to shape and promote policy, could ultimately have the effect of reducing the possible disadvantages Hutchison could face in future races in a state with a rapidly growing population of Hispanics who've been more inclined to support Democrats.

While Hutchison's initial co-chairs lean Republican, they are diverse as a group with interesting individual backgrounds. O'Grady spent six days behind enemy lines in 1995 when his F-16 was hit by an anti-aircraft missile while helping enforce the no-fly zone over Bosnia. The pilot, who was rescued by U.S. Marine, described the experience in a book that became a national best seller. O'Grady began working on a graduate degree at Dallas Theological Seminary after being placed on inactive status following 12 years of active duty.

Klein, a Republican who's Hispanic, is also a military veteran who participated in Operation Desert Storm as a member of the Air Force Reserves. She resigned her seat on the PUC early last year to battle U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett for a seat that he won in a new congressional district that hooks Austin to the Rio Grande Valley. A former personnel official in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Klein is now a managing partner in the Austin office for the law firm run by former Texas Congressman Tom Loeffler.

Bush, whose mother is Colombian, has been practicing law in Dallas since graduating from the University of Texas Law School. Myers - an executive in the private sector - is a former Hutchison staff member who's African-American.