On Sunday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fired up a crowd of thousands in the heavily Republican Houston suburb of Cypress, urging them to send a message to Washington by supporting Gov. Rick Perry over US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in next month’s GOP primary.

Palin followed the course that Perry has set throughout his campaign by repeatedly bashing Washington but never saying Hutchison’s name in what looked more like a presidential rally than a gubernatorial one; there was confetti and rock music and a slew of television cameras.

Palin asked the crowd of about 8,000, “What’s it going to be? The way they operate in D.C., or the way y’all get things done in Texas?”

Hutchison has scored the support of a number of Republican luminaries, including former President George H.W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney. But with Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, Perry scored an A-lister who is closely identified with the tea party activists who are playing an increasingly important role in today’s GOP.

(article and photo source: Statesman.com)