What will happen this time around is anyone’s guess. Candidates file for office in the first days of the year in which they’ll be running. Hutchison’s office isn’t on the ballot until 2012, so it’ll be in the first week of January — not this one, but the next one — when she actually, legally, has to state her intentions. Only White has said he’s not interested this time. You can add Lt. Gov.David Dewhurst to the possible candidates on the Republican side (not saying yes, not saying no, so keep him listed). U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, got beat on Election Day but has lots of friends in the political money class and is the subject of much speculation. If you actually ask him, which risks spoiling the speculation, he says he hasn’t thought about future political races.
When she ran for governor, Hutchison signaled her seriousness not by resigning from one job to run for the other, but by nearly emptying her federal campaign finance treasury into her state political account. Texas, with more than a dozen and a half media markets, is a notoriously expensive place to campaign; a statewide Senate race usually costs upward of $10 million, more if it’s a real competition. At the end of September — the date of the latest report Hutchison filed with the Federal Election Commission — she had $52,053 in her federal campaign account.
Want to know what she’s up to? Ignore the pronouncements and the parsing of her statements. Watch the money. If she wants voters to give her another term in 2012, she’ll have to convince the political financiers first.
Kay may have a difficult time raising money with as much ease as she once did... having lost so soundly to Rick a lot of her fund raising base has probably dried up and a lot of people will be hesitant to throw good money after bad... it is also a lot more effort and time intensive to raise money at the federal level... she can't just get a few big checks as in state politics...
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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.