“Sen. Hutchison, can you please move to your right?” — The photographer talking to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) while taking the Senate class picture Tuesday afternoon. Everyone erupted in laughter and a few were heard saying “Primary!” Ironically, Hutchison actually needed to move a bit more to the left — not right.
The photographer taking senators’ official photo for this 111th Congress on Tuesday didn’t have to command “smile.” Instead she got her subjects laughing out loud with an unintended political quip.
The photographer had already taken a few shots of the Democrats and Republicans seated at their desks in the Senate chamber, with a simple count of 1-2-3, when she directed, “Senator Hutchison, could you move to your right?”
As Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican from Texas, dutifully—and sheepishly—did so, her colleagues cracked up.
The assembled political junkies were well aware that conservative Republicans back in Texas have been pressing the senator to make the same rightward move—politically—now that she has begun campaigning for governor against the Republican incumbent, Gov. Rick Perry.
In their intra-party rivalry, which is shaping up as one of the hottest matches of the 2010 midterm election season, Mrs. Hutchison is the relative moderate, particularly on social issues. That makes her unpopular with some of the socially conservative activists who dominate the Texas Republican Party, but she argues that the party must broaden its appeal or suffer further losses in the state.
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Hey now, campaign characters. Be nice. I know a lot of you on both sides, so I don't want any overly foul language, personal attacks on anyone other than the candidates themselves, or other party fouls. I will moderate the heck out of you if you start breaking the bounds of civility.