Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 9, 1993 TAG: 9306090297
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
State Treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison won by a 2-1 margin over Democrat Bob Krueger, the incumbent by virtue of his interim appointment by Gov. Ann Richards after Bentsen resigned to join the administration. The turnout was low, and former Rep. Krueger conceded that "I wasn't a great politician." So resounding a margin, however, makes such caveats seem irrelevant.
Hutchison, viewed in Texas as a moderate Republican, campaigned more against Clinton and his economic package - especially his proposed energy tax - than against Krueger. Clearly, Texans were doing more than electing their first female U.S. senator, more than putting both Texas Senate seats in GOP control for the first time since 1875. They were also handing the president a rebuke.
Phil Gramm, the other Texas senator, declared Hutchison's victory a chance to stop not only an energy tax but also the proposed increase in the percentage of Social Security benefits subject to income taxes.
Krueger's 33 percent of the vote wasn't hugely below the 37 percent won by Clinton in losing the state to George Bush in November. But the Ross Perot vote - 22 percent in Texas in November, three points above the national average - appeared to go heavily to Hutchison.
Clinton's current weakness, the voting suggests, may result less from a drop in support from those who voted for him than from his failure to win over Perot voters. The results also suggest the potency of the Hutchison-like coupling of anti-taxism with middle-of-the-road views on such social issues as abortion.
The results suggest little, however, about the specific additional spending cuts needed if federal debt is to be brought under control without tax increases or the smoke-and-mirror gimmicks that perpetuate the difficulty.
Will Hutchison, for example, push to close Texas military bases, and to abort the Texas-based supercollider project, with the same fervor with which she opposes an energy tax?
by CNB