Although not an expert on Texas politics,  I do recognize a Republican (think John McCain) who has spent far too much time developing Potomac fever and her name is Kay Bailey Hutchison. I am particularly glad that the author called out the Bush/Rove/Karen Hughes  “new tone” strategy mentality of being gentlemen and reaching out to your opponents. I know that Rick Perry seems to have Texas’s economy in a lot better shape then most states and as far as Medina goes – that 9/11 Troofer moment on Beck’s show was a bit much.

by C. Edmund Wright

While the ever-helpful Jurassic media is trying to force-feed conservatives and Republicans groupthink analysis of Rick Perry’s thumping of Kay Bailey Hutchison (KBH), the GOP had better heed the main lesson: The “new tone” era is over.

Consider: The political team and concepts that dominated the Lone Star State just ten years ago and subsequently engineered two presidential elections just got whipped in what amounts to an intramural contest in their own state.

KBH’s incompetent primary campaign was itself a caricature of the senior senator — and it was precisely that caricature that her opponents wanted to portray. Perry and Tea Party candidate Debra Medina did not have to do much but get out of the way and let the KBH campaign prove that the senior senator and her top advisers were indeed all creatures of Washington who are hopelessly out of touch.

And for some reason, Hutchison, along with advisers Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, thought that the best way to counter this was to bring in George Bush 41, George Bush 43, and James Baker to campaign. Were John McCain, Bob Dole, and Olympia Snowe too busy to come?

Oh, and to top it off, the Hutchison campaign ads featured endorsements from the traditional liberal newspapers. Conversely, Perry brought in Sarah Palin to campaign for him and proudly addressed numerous tea party rallies.

[…]

… Remember that Rove was the architect of Bush’s “new tone” governing and communications strategy that was implemented right after Bush was declared the winner in 2000. The new tone was much like being able to “work with people.” The first new tone decision was to not even debate the national raw vote situation, a decision that still fuels anti-Republican sentiment to this day.

The bottom line is that the new tone was never called for by Americans. To think so was to be rather tone-deaf. Any strategy based on the assumption that people just could not get along — and ignores the possibility of legitimate and deep ideological divides — misses the point. By definition, the new tone more or less meant not debating your opponents very vigorously before compromising with them on almost everything.

Read the rest here: Texas-Sized Lesson: The New Tone Era Is Over