Rick's gal wins party chair... the runner up also his supporter...

Cathie Adams is the new chairwoman of the Texas Republican Party... the other candidate in the race was also a Rick supporter. Todd Gillman has a run down of the situation (link). Excerpt follows...

The new GOP chairwoman, Cathie Adams, supports Gov. Rick Perry over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Even if you didn't know that going in, you could infer it from the comments Perry and Hutchison offered this afternoon on her election to succeed Tina Benkiser, who stepped down as state GOP chair a month ago... to join the Perry campaign.

Hutchison offered a tepid statement. "I want to congratulate Cathie Adams onher election as Chair of the Republican Party of Texas. I hope to work with her in building the Republican Party of Texas."

Perry was much more effusive:

"I want to congratulate Cathie on becoming the new Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. I look forward to working with her to advance the conservative values that have made both our state and party stronger. As we continue working to build our party, Cathie's leadership will be essential to cultivating and attracting new voters who share our belief in lower taxes, less government and building a climate that attracts jobs to our state."

Adams is longtime chair of Texas Eagle Forum -- the state affiliate of activist Phyllis Schlafly's group.

When Hutchison was going around Texas this summer calling on "enlightened" Republicans to join her quest to unseat Perry, she probably realized that wouldn't sound like sweet music to someone like Adams.

Adams made little secret of her preference, and formally endorsed in August.Here is the governor's announcement at the time.

Many social conservatives look with suspicion at Hutchison, whose conservative credentials are strongest on issues like defense and gun rights, but far weaker when it comes to the culture wars and pro-life issues. Hutchison has always maintained that abortion should be legal, for instance -- though she's done it quietly, to avoid annoying too many GOP stalwarts, and she nearly always votes to restrict access or funding whenever an abortion issue happens to come up in Congress.

The former party chair Tina Benkiser was also a Rick supporter... it is somewhat surprising that Kay did not have a proxy candidate in this race to get in there and fight on her behalf, but when you think about the party activists and who runs for these positions it is pretty obvious that Kay doesn't have many prominent county chair supporters or SREC supporters out there... the Texas GOP is not necessarily all 100% behind Rick, but they definitely aren't rushing over to Kay right now... I think for her to win this race the way she envisioned a year ago is for the party to turn against Rick and embrace her, something that is not happening whatsoever...