Why Kay Bailey Hutchson lost - and her future

Kay Bailey Hutchison folded like a house of cards, unable to even send Rick Perry to a runoff in a three-way race with a tea partier challenging Tricky Ricky on the right. How weak is that?

Very weak, from where I stand. BUT ... not unexpected.

She ran about the lamest major-level state office campaign I've seen in my journalist history. It was clear, a month after her entering the race, why she ducked out of a challenge to Perry four years ago. She simply wasn't ready to, at first, and then refused to mentally get ready to, trade gut-level punches, or below.

When your most memorable TV commercials involve TxDOT electronic traffic billboards, you have a media campaign staff that should be fired. Other weak-tea commercials? The ones that had the pull quotes from newspaper editorial endorsements come immediately to mind.

Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News offers his take, summed up in a one-liner:

She had a dozen messages and no message.

That said, you can have multiple messages, if they're ultimately submessages of, if more than one, no more than three main messages. AND, if you're ready to play political hardball in selling them.

If you wanted more moderate GOP voters to be more enthusiastic, you should have targeted younger, suburban voters. Targeted them better. And, gotten more troops involved with GOTV efforts.

That said, I don't totally blame campaign manager Terry Sullivan. He worked with the material he had. But, so much for his reputation as a "hardball strategist," eh?

Now, do Debra Medina supporters vote for Tricky Ricky in November, or stay home? It depends in part on whether he decides to tack to the center or stay far right. That, in turn, depends in part on whether or not Bill White can gin up a legitimate "Republicans for Bill" organization.

And, yes, that's possible. Some of Kay's financial big guns actually, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, seem to kind of welcome it:

"I can assure you that I will not be a financial supporter of Rick Perry, and I can assure you that most of the people I talk to are not going to support him either," said Fort Worth oilman Dick Moncrief, Hutchison's financial chairman in North Texas, predicting that Republicans who are "fed up with Perry" may wind up supporting White if Hutchison fails to get the nomination.

Stay tuned. And, I hope Bill White can pull this off.

Kay's Senate seat
Now, what's in Kay's future?

Now that she stands exposed, will she get a primary challenger for her Senate seat two years from now? I'd give you 50-50 on that. No, it won't be a Debra Medina-level nutbar, just a Rick Perry-level one.

Now, will she stay, or go through with the "pledge" of leaving early?

Burnt Orange Report offers four options:

She resigns respectfully, campaigns for the Republican, and walks off the stage with little fanfare and no big applause. Her legacy then is the same as it is today.
She stays in the Senate, finds a bipartisan cause to champion, and passes an historic piece of legislation. Strong legacy, especially if Perry loses to White in the fall -- which would amount to a vindication for Hutchison's campaign.
She endorses Rick Perry. The weakest of her options, because it makes her less than Perry.
She endorses Bill White. The most unlikely of options, but the one with the highest reward.

I offer option five: She stays in the Senate, licks her wounds, does little, and stays in Washington after January 2013.

Let's look further at why all four of Burnt Orange's options are wrong.

No. 1? Too painful for even "Miss Good GOPer," I think. Plus, if Tricky Ricky plays to the base and tacks right in the general election, he might not want her.

No. 2? Nope. First, of course, no big bipartisan issue is getting past the rest of this Congress. And, depending on how many Senate seats the Dems lose in November, and who fills them from the GOP, the next Congress is likely to be even less bipartisan. Doorknob bless Burnt Orange Report, but their "options" are kind of clueless on this one.

I presume, though it's not clear, that Options 3 and 4 also presume she resigns. I don't think it's likely, as said. But, if she does, 3 is more likely than Option 1. Option 4 ain't likely.

Per the StartleGram link above, it's clear Options 1 and 3 ain't what her financial backers want, either.

Meanwhile, CQ Politics looks further at how her different possible decisions play out for others.