In her bid for governor, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is putting money where her mouth is.
In fact, she's putting more than $12 million where her mouth is.
"Today, I am announcing that the exploratory committee is closed. The campaign for governor of Texas is open for business," Hutchison told a crowd of supporters at the Dallas County GOP headquarters.
The main purpose of the press conference was to tell reporters that she had raised more than $6.7 million in six months for her gubernatorial campaign. The total puts her cash on hand at more than $12 million.
In early June Hutchison sent out an e-mail to supporters asking for financial contributions before the June 30 financial disclosure date.
Campaign watchers expected her to raise more money, but Hutchison strongly defended her haul of $6.7 million in six months.
"Except for George W. Bush, no candidate in Texas has raised that much," she said.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
The fundraising disclosure comes one week after Gov. Rick Perry reported that he raised more than $4 million in just nine days for his 2010 re-election campaign.
He said more than $450,000 came from online donations and brought his warchest to more than $9.3 million.
The Perry camp has boasted about how it raised the money in a shorter period of time, because the governor can't legally raise money while lawmakers are in session.
In an e-mail, Perry's campaign spokesman said the governor's campaign wasn't impressed with Hutchison's fundraising efforts.
"The weak finance numbers by the senator continue to show a campaign in disarray," said Mark Miner, spokesman for Texans for Rick Perry. "It's certainly not a good investment to have spent $2.2 million and drop 25 points."
Perry's campaign was referring to a series of polls in the last few weeks that have shown Hutchison's support dropping after Perry showed up at a series of "anti-Washington" Tea Parties around Texas.
But Hutchison brushed off the recent polls and spoke pointedly about Perry's "anti-Washington" talk.
"I'm going to take it to the governor on the anti-Washington rhetoric, because I'm as anti-Washington as he is, and I'm up there doing something about it," she said. "And so is every Republican in the Texas delegation, who are getting a little tired of being painted with a brush that we aren't fighting every step of the way. My goodness, we are fighting on every front, and I'm doing something about it. The governor can talk -- I'm going to deliver."
Hutchison said she wants to win the election by bringing more people into the Republican Party.
"Are we going to be a party that broadens our base and reaches out to the people that want to be Republicans and have our basic values, or are we going to be a party that narrows our base?" she said. "Because if we're going to narrow our base, we're not going to be the majority party in Texas, nor would we deserve to be."
Hutchison said she plans to formally announce her candidacy next month.
Stacy Morrow contributed to this report.
