Kay was against dual campaigns before she was for them...

Wayne Slater and Jason Embry picked up on a contradiction between present day Kay and old school Kay (link)...

Kay Bailey Hutchison, who announced Friday that running for a new office without abandoning the old one was the right thing to do, once said running for a new office while holding another was the wrong thing to do. As the estimable Jason Embry points out, in her 1990 campaign for state treasurer, Hutchison targeted Democrat Nikki Van Hightower for not quitting her day job as Harris County treasurer while running for state treasurer. Hutchison chided her rival for neglecting her Harris County job while running statewide. Said Hutchison: "She is not here. She is campaigning all over Texas. But she is taking her pay from the taxpayers of Harris County. I don't consider that integrity, and I don't consider it leadership."

Hutchison will be staying in the Senate while seeking to knock off Rick Perry in the GOP primary. Team Perry has criticized her for missing votes in Washington. Hutchison says she can multitask.

Rick could use those words to hit Kay with two or three minor changes...

"She is not doing her job in Washington. She is campaigning all over Texas. But she is taking her pay from the taxpayers. I don't consider that integrity, and I don't consider it leadership."

The thing about Kay and multi tasking is that she has already shown she is not running the greatest campaign, and she is also missing a lot of work and leaving Texas without a dedicated senator... if she really is going to resign in March regardless of whether she wins or loses then she might as well have resigned a year ago and allowed someone to start building seniority for Texas... assuming seniority is the top criterion for a successful senator.

I think Kay said that same thing last year when she was claiming she would definitely resign in 2009... that the person taking her spot would need to start building seniority as early as possible.

I for one am just glad she made a decision at all... it seems like the question over whether she would resign or not was the only story being written for the past two or three months. Now the focus turns to whether she will really go through with filing, and if so when... and if she will really not drop out in January if she sees polls showing the same things as right now... 11 or 12 points down... or that she does not have a big money lead when the reports for the second half of 2009 come out...

I hate to sound like a broken record here but this whole thing is reminding me a lot of her actions in 2005 and 2006 when she stepped back from a challenge against Rick and instead ran for a third term to the senate.