POSTED: Friday, January 21, 2011 - 5:22pm
UPDATED: Friday, January 21, 2011 - 5:23pm
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is considered the early favorite to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Dewhurst isn't officially in the race yet, and he says he is spending "99.9 percent" of his time on the legislative session in Austin, where he presides over the state Senate and plays a major role in what gets out of the upper chamber.
Dewhurst is widely considered to be a relatively bipartisan consensus builder, which has won him kudos at the Capitol but isn't necessarily a good calling card among conservative activists. It doesn't seem to matter to many of them that Dewhurst has supported most of their causes and was a generous donor to them before spending millions of his fortune on his own races for statewide office.