KBH: Not resigning till after the primary

That sound you hear is me saying I told you so.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is planning to hold onto her Senate seat until after Texas’ March gubernatorial primaries are over.

[…]

Campaign officials provided The Associated Press a copy of a speech Hutchison plans to give to Republican women in Galveston, Texas, on Saturday. In it, Hutchison plans to say she is stepping down in 2010 regardless of who wins the Republican primary for governor. But she says there are too many important issues facing Congress for her to quit this fall as she had planned.

Remember when “some time in October or November” became “I may stay till the end of the year“? Good times. Now will someone please tell me why I should believe her “I’ll step down after the primary no matter what” statement even for a minute? Seriously, she’s changed her story about when or if she’ll resign more often than most people change clothes. I say her story will change again, and there’s no evidence to suggest otherwise.

I had originally drafted this post to talk about that new Rasmussen poll for the GOP gubernatorial primary that has Rick Perry up on KBH by a 46-35 margin, with Debra Medina getting four points (via the Trib). You will note this bit, which maybe could possibly be related to this announcement:

Most voters — 60 percent — think Hutchison should keep her job as U.S. Senator while she’s running for governor. Hutchison has said she plans to resign to run, but that’s now on hold as she waits to vote on pending health care reform plans. Only 26 percent said she should resign. As for healthcare reform, 76 percent strongly oppose “the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats.”

Need I say more? There’s no pressure on her to resign from the electorate, which is happy to have her in there fighting to ensure that millions of Americans remain uninsured. And when that fight is over, whether before the year’s end or not, there will be something else that will have the GOP’s hair on fire. Sure, whoever Rick Perry named to replace her would do all the same things she’d be doing, just with less seniority, but that’s not how it will play. Team Perry may be bashing her now for being in Washington, but the minute she leaves they’ll attack her for abandoning us when we need her the most. I’m the least surprised person in the world by these developments.

Anyway. The other thing I wanted to note about this poll was Medina’s four percent. It’s my belief that generally speaking third-party and lower-tier candidates like her tend to poll better than they actually run, especially when they have little money. Remember when Chris Daggett, the indie candidate in the New Jersey Governor’s race was polling in double digits? Well, he wound up with less than 6 percent of the vote in the end, thanks in part to having no money, and in my opinion in part to people realizing that a vote for him was wasted. I’ve said before that I doubt Medina will do any better than the 4.87% her BFF Ron Paul got in the GOP Presidential primary last year, and I see no reason to change my mind about that.

UPDATE: More from the Trib on KBH.

UPDATE: The Bill White blog says:

Every day that Bill White campaigns, he earns support. We’ve always expected that the election for Texas’ next Senator would be a special election after the March gubernatorial primaries, and that hasn’t changed. Bill’s running to work for Texans in the U.S. Senate.

So there you have that.

UPDATE: More from BOR, who notes that KBH says she’ll be in it till after cap and trade comes up, and Hank Gilbert.

UPDATE: John Sharp says on Twitter “I said before this started last december, I will be a candidate for U.S. Senate when this seat becomes available, whether in 2012 or sooner.” Hope he can afford to keep loaning himself the dough to do that.

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8 Responses to KBH: Not resigning till after the primary

  1. Her mama raised no fool. Considering how fickle the GOP can be (picking the dumbest Governor we have had since the last one)…smart move KBH!

  2. Baby Snooks says:

    If you read it carefully she really doesn’t say she will resign if she loses the primary. Which she won’t. And she will pull the “what’s best for Texans” as she announces she will be staying in the Senate after she loses the primary. It is doubtful she will win. This more or less has cost her the votes she needed. Once again, what she says she will do and what she does are two different things. At least with Rick Perry there is consistency. The only consistency with Kay Bailey Hutchison is her “what’s best for Texans” excuse for running again and again and again for the Senate in order to run for governor.

    Baby Snooks told you so. About a lot of things.

  3. racymind says:

    Heh… I couldn’t finish reading about it at TPM before running over here to see if you had an “I told you so” piece up.

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