Thursday, October 22, 2009

Kay... should she stay or should she resign?

The Austin American Statesman editorial page editorializes about Kay and her lack of a resignation (link). Excerpt follows...

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison — she of the gubernatorial aspirations — has the right to keep her current job while she seeks the one she wants next.

She also has the right to resign from the Senate in order to devote her full attention to a gubernatorial race that deserves full attention.

If she decides that resignation is the way to go, she has the right to do it now or next month or next year or whenever she deems the proper time.

But here's what we and a whole bunch of people making decisions about what to run for next year have a right to know: When, Sen. Hutchison, when?

And we have a right to know it sooner than later.

Kay's big flipping and flopping and twisting and turning on this issue is mostly inside baseball and probably won't matter to most voters but it does matter to party activists... it also matters to her fund raising and credibility...

I think there are a lot of calculations at work and most of them are not good for Kay... she can resign but then she loses her offices all over the state, she loses the federal resources and federal platform to try to build up a conservative reputation... she loses the ability to go on TV as a senator to talk about policy and suddenly is only a candidate for office talking about political things only...

Resigning gives her more time to campaign in Texas but then Rick gets to choose her replacement and she gets hit for abandoning her post when important things are going on and also for causing a special election which gives Democrats an opportunity to pick off her senate seat...


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Hey now, campaign characters. Be nice. I know a lot of you on both sides, so I don't want any overly foul language, personal attacks on anyone other than the candidates themselves, or other party fouls. I will moderate the heck out of you if you start breaking the bounds of civility.