Mutual assured destruction - Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison likely to win Lloyd Bentsen's Senate seat in Texas - Editorial

Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison defied the pundits - national review included - by winning the first round of Texas's special election for Lloyd Bentsen's Senate seat, clipping by a few hundred votes the appointed incumbent, Bob Krueger. This despite the presence in the 24-man race of two other Republicans who each garnered about 14 per cent of the vote - third-place finisher Representative Joe Barton and, just behind him, NR's pick, Representative Jack Fields. Mrs. Hutchison now faces the colorless Senator Krueger in a June 5 runoff that she seems likely to win handily.

But some Texas conservatives are greeting the possibility of having two Republican senators for the first time in modern history with yawns or worse - there are threats to sit out the race because of Kay Bailey Hutchison's status as a moderate Republican. This quest for ideological purity has mostly been squelched, thanks to the graciousness in defeat of Representatives Barton and Fields. And rightly so.

A victorious Kay Hutchison would represent another neon sign of the Clinton Administration's political weakness. (A waggish Senator Gramm is offering to pay the President's airfare to come to Texas to campaign for Senator Krueger.) And Mrs. Hutchison is to the right of center on most issues. She stresses the traditional Republican pro-family themes, opposes lifting the military's gay ban, endorses spending cuts to slice the deficit, wants a brake on precipitous defense cuts - and even on abortion, where she is generally "pro-choice," she supports parental-consent laws and opposes the Freedom of Choice Act.

Admittedly, we would have preferred Jack Fields or Joe Barton. But here lies a lesson for conservatives nationwide: each was prevented from building a sizable conservative plurality - assuming either could have reached beyond his local stronghold - by the presence of the other. This sort of fratricide is the stuff of politics; there's no preventing it. But a sense of common conservative purpose could make it less prevalent (in California alone last year, Senate primaries featured Bono v. Herschensohn and Allen v. Dannemeyer). Conservative candidates often talk of their commitment to "principle" during primary season; the best way to demonstrate it would be for some of them to stay out of the race entirely. Given their other obstacles, conservatives can do without Mutual Assured Destruction.