Retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison refused today to soften any of the criticisms she leveled at Texas Gov. Rick Perry when she challenged him in last year’s GOP gubernatorial primary.
“I’m not going to backtrack on anything I said,” Hutchison told CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked whether her criticisms still stand against Perry, who is running for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. “I tried to give Texas a choice. ... He was pretty brutal on my record, and I took on his record. And so that’s the way politics is, and it does come back.”
Hutchison lost by more than 20 points in the March 2010 gubernatorial primary.
“I thought we needed a choice in Texas, and I certainly feel the same way about the United States,” she said without offering an endorsement in the presidential race.
Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, arrives for a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the investigation of the IRS' targeting of political groups. Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not testify and caused a protest from some committee members when she offered an opening statement and engaged in dialogue with members before invoking the right.
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