Kay may miss her own Cheney event?

Jason Embry asked Kay whether she would be skipping a vote on Tuesday to attend her Cheney event (link). Excerpt follows...

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said in Galveston today that she hasn’t yet determined whether she’ll be able to make a Tuesday appearance and fundraiser in Houston with former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The full Senate’s first major procedural vote on health-care legislation could come Tuesday.

Hutchison has made the fight against health care the main rationale behind her decision not to resign from the Senate before her March primary against Gov. Rick Perry. At the same time, the Cheney appearance is one of the most important events of her campaign.

“We’re working on it,” Hutchison said this morning in her first interview since her campaign announced she would not resign the Senate seat before the primary. “That’s going to be a tough situation. But again, I’ll make the judgment call.”

If Hutchison cannot make it to Houston on Tuesday, Cheney will appear at the events without her, a campaign spokesman said.

Hutchison said she knows she will miss some votes in Washington leading up to the primary.

“I’m not going to miss important votes,” she said. “I’m not going to miss votes where it can make a difference. But clearly I cannot be there 100 percent every single time.”

Kay is already setting herself up for failure and ridicule here... on the one hand she is going to fight for Texas and do everything she can and use every tool at her disposal on these important issues... on the other hand she is saying she is going to still be missing certain votes?

But if she misses a vote it means it is not an important vote... that sets herself up for major damage when she misses any vote that is remotely important. I can already see "Kay doesn't consider x issue important" stories.

Will Kay have to miss her own event with Dick Cheney next week? That would be a huge bummer.

Her announcement this weekend is on the one hand a big relief for her... she gets that "when will she resign" question off her back. On the other hand it puts even more of a microscope on her senate voting record. She has to basically vote straight party line for the rest of the year and beyond or she is going to have a lot of her own words coming back to haunt her.