Kay's Friday afternoon attack on Rick.

On Friday afternoon, Kay attacked Rick for his rejection of a relatively small portion of the Obama stimulus package (link).

Excerpt follows...

AUSTIN – Kay Bailey Hutchison slammed Rick Perry's decision four months ago to reject $555 million in economic stimulus money to help the unemployed, saying Friday that it was "reckless" and showed a lack of both leadership and judgment.

"This is yet another Rick Perry disaster," Hutchison said in a written statement.

So shrill and mean spirited, not the Kay that so many Texans such as me thought they knew and loved.

Rick did of course accept the overwhelming majority of the stimulus as Kay's campaign is always eager to point out.

Rick did reject a portion that would have required Texas to permanently expand a government insurance program, saying no to somewhere around 550 million dollars worth of stimulus.

There possibly were more strings attached to other stimulus money, but in Rick's estimation it was not worth it to accept the strings and the money on this program expansion.

I agreed with him strongly back when he made the decision, and I still agree with him. There is no such thing as a free lunch and taking that money would have been a long term policy change for the worse and not much of a short term gain.

I am also confused about where Kay was back then on this issue. Did Kay agree or disagree with Rick back a few months ago? I seem to recall her confusing other people pretty strongly too, but the impression I was left with was that she favored the strings attached stimulus dollars because she did not really view it as strings, she viewed it as a good thing to grow that portion of government.

In this video from March she said she sort of agreed with Rick but not really...

In this video she said she said she did not agree...

What I got from Kay's criticism back a few months ago was that she disagreed with Rick but didn't really have a good explanation as to why. Some people are saying that Kay is flip flopping on this issue, but others are saying this was a reminder of why they believe Kay is not conservative enough to win a GOP primary. Whether it is a flip flop or not, she is basically siding with arch liberals Olbermann, Maddow, and Jim Dunnam over all the business groups like NFIB and TAB, all the conservative think tanks like Empower Texans, the Texas Conservative Coalition, and TPPF, and strong majorities of Texas voters (link).

Either way it was a strange attack by Kay with over the top vitriolic language made late on a Friday afternoon. I don't get it. In January Kay was neck and neck with Rick in my internal polling... of me. As I have blogged and become somewhat of an expert on these two candidates, she now is hanging on by a thread.

After Kay made her comments in the videos linked here, Rick responded...

As a political communications junkie, that off the cuff response by Rick is almost flawless. The stuff on Friday just brought back all of these memories which are not good for Kay. I have no idea what she is thinking here attacking from the liberal side yet again.

It is probably obvious to most readers that my blogs have become increasingly pro Rick here month by month. Really it was this issue back in March that first pushed me strongly away from Kay. After so many of these comments from Kay, she is losing me more and more. I prefer to make my decision late in the game most times, but after Friday's whopper from Kay I will be hard pressed to pick her next March.