Radnofsky Takes Aim at Hutchison

Barbara Radnofsky, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, passed through town Monday night, visiting the Kuhn, Doyle & Kuhn law firm for a small fundraiser. Radnofsky said that she's made 230 similar visits around Texas in the last year and a half, since she announced her campaign to take on GOP incumbent Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, under the slogan "Tough name, smart dame." Radnofsky, a lawyer at Houston megafirm Vinson & Elkins for 25 years, says she's running for the senate because "we're here on this earth due to the sacrifices of others," and it's time for her to give something back to the community. Among the two dozen or so in attendance were Austin state Rep. Elliott Naishtat and Jason Earle, Dem candidate for the Disrict 47 seat currently held by GOP Rep. Terry Keel.

Radnofsky said her key issues will be veterans' benefits, health care, and education, and she called Hutchison a "rubber stamp for the Bush administration." Radnofsky says she's found a lot of "angry Republican voters" around the state, open to her message of "problem-solving," especially on health care and public education. Asked about the difficulty of taking on a well-known incumbent, Radnofsky said there are also disadvantages to incumbency: "I can tie Hutchison to Karl Rove – she was the only senator to endorse his comments attacking the Democrats for their reaction to 9/11."

Pressed by one audience member on the Iraq war, Radnofsky declined to call for immediate withdrawal, saying rather that Congress needs to "take back its role" and "set a timetable, protect our troops, and prepare to get out." She said most Texans were now shifting against the war "on economic grounds," but that we can't simply look backward and condemn administration mistakes "because we're there, and we're stuck. … We're mired in a situation we need to get out of."