A tough year for the GOP and a shot across the bow on transportation.

Kay Bailey Hutchison's stump speech starts with a warning that Republicans "have had a real hard time this year" and will have a tough time it the elections. She wants to continue tax cuts, opposes calls for a deadline and withdrawal from Iraq, says the federal government is cutting its deficit, and is making a pitch for alternative fuels, wind energy generation, and more nuclear plants. She said after a speech to the Texas Association of Counties that Congress will take up immigration before the end of the year, and argued that her guest worker program can't be fairly called an amnesty program.

She also told a group of reporters that she's against toll roads where roads already exist, and said she's got reservations about Gov. Rick Perry's Trans Texas Corridor proposal. Both have been major topics in Barbara Ann Radnofsky's speeches of late. "I'm not saying I'm against another route for bypassing the major, clogged freeways that we have. Interstate 35 is a parking lot. But I think that going too far outside of the major metropolitan areas is an issue that should be resolved."

Hutchison said she's wary of big road projects and the "taking of property" they entail. The TTC proposal would eventually connect major points in the state with quarter-mile-wide corridors that include roads, railways, pipelines and utility easements. A series of hearings around the state has stirred opposition from property owners. Candidates in several races have made those hearings regular campaign stops. They've been noisy and passionate; whether the issue translates into something meaningful for Election Day isn't yet clear.