Hutchison, Medina gang up on Perry; governor defends his policies

The two women running for governor took steady aim at Rick Perry in the Republicans’ last joint debate Friday before the primary, slamming the incumbent for being chummy with lobbyists and for denying the rocky finances on the state’s horizon.

Perry, while on defense most of the night, stood his ground on his economic development plans, tax policies and promotion of toll roads.

He said Texas is the envy of many large states for having weathered the recession, and he tackled a gnarled transportation problem that predecessors had “kicked down the road.”

He hung many of the state’s problems with illegal immigration and budget shortfalls on Washington and, by not-too-thinly veiled extension, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

“We’ve got some big challenges in front of us, whether it’s electrical, water, transportation infrastructure, it’s going to take some experienced, experienced executive leadership to take this state forward,” Perry said.

In return, Hutchison chastised Perry, saying she was a true conservative who would rein in his expensive pet projects that were directed in secret.

She cited in particular the $380 million Texas Enterprise Fund, used to attract businesses that she said were coming to the state anyway, and the state Transportation Department, which lost $1 billion in an accounting snafu.

“We need to stop the cronyism in Austin,” Hutchison said.

She said the reasons Perry promoted a cervical cancer vaccine for teenage girls and backed the now-defunct Trans-Texas Corridor “was because there were lobbyists who were first, not the people of Texas.”

But it was upstart Debra Medina who struck the most memorable notes of the televised debate, speaking with a nothing-to-lose abandon and an independent stridency.

She scorched the two Republican leaders, saying they were career politicians who have lost touch with the people.

“Together they are a team of economic tricksters intent on destroying our freedoms and selling Texas to the highest bidder,” the Wharton nurse and businesswoman said of her opponents.

Medina said using tax money to reward certain businesses with the Texas Enterprise Fund was the folly of a government toying with the markets.

“He takes from us so that he can play with his corporate slush fund and award his friends’ businesses,” she said. “That’s not his to give, and he hasn’t understood the proper role of government in Texas.”

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