Texas Titans Battle for GOP Nod in Governor's Race

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2010 -- When Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison signaled she was challenging fellow Republican Rick Perry for governor of Texas shortly after the 2008 election, the conventional wisdom was that the veteran senator, who has won all her elections with at least 60 percent of the vote, might pose a real threat to Perry, who was re-elected four years ago with just 39 percent of the vote.

But a funny thing happened on the way to this Lone Star shoot-out: Perry, who enjoys the support of Sarah Palin, effectively nationalized the race and turned Hutchison's Washington experience against her.

The incumbent governor has fared so well, in fact, that Texas Monthly Magazine recently floated the prospect that he might run for president in 2012.

"We all know the old line that all politics is local," Wayne Slater, a veteran political reporter for the Dallas Morning News, told ABCNews.com's "Top Line" on Monday. "This year, it seems that politics is really national."

As voters go to the polls today in Texas, the big question is not whether Perry will be re-nominated but whether Hutchison and a third candidate, Debra Medina, will force Perry into extra innings. An April 13 runoff between the top two vote-getters will be required if no candidate garners a majority in today's vote.

Although most incumbent governors are struggling around the country, local observers say Perry has the upper-hand in this GOP primary fight for two reasons: first, the Texas economy is stronger than the economy of most other states; second, Perry, who has flirted with the idea of secession, has tapped into the anti-Washington sentiment brewing around the country.

"Rick Perry saw very early on that this Washington Tea Party movement, this anti-Washington uprising, was very effective and he framed the campaign that way," Slater said. "'Kay Bailey Hutchison is Washington and all things bad about Washington. I am Texas. State sovereignty. The 10th Amendment. States' rights.' That has been very successful."