The Conan O'Brien Of Texas Politics

The parallels between the bloodbath involving Senator Kaye Bailey Hutchison vs. Governor Rick Perry and the one just concluded between Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien couldn't be more spooky. In one corner, we have a popular incumbent who has dominated his segment for many years, delivering the goods for his organization, stomping the competition, and expecting to stay where he is. In the other corner, there's a Quirky Lightweight who has never amounted to much, leveraging the Peter Principle as if it was an immutable law of physics who wants to replace the Incumbent. It's not apparent to anybody that any good will come of it for anybody if the Quirky Lightweight is allowed to have their way, but they throw so many tantrums that people are starting to notice.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Give the Quirky Lightweight an ultimatum, tell them to shut their yap and go do the job for which they have demonstrated a modest competence, and let the Incumbent continue to deliver the goods in the prime slot.

Unfortunately, we haven't gotten to the third corner. In that corner is a gaggle of Establishment Republicans skilled in the art of compromise, even when the need for compromise serves no useful purpose and plants the seeds of an impending disaster. They fashion a deal in 2005 wherein the Incumbent is allowed to keep his job, but only if he agrees to give it up to the Quirky Lightweight in 2010. Fast forward to 2010, and this is where the analogy breaks down a bit, because Perry is promised no new gig, as was Leno in 2009, and thus does not agree to go gently into the night, as did Leno.

Either way, you know in your heart of hearts that the Quirky Lightweight does not have what it takes to deliver in prime time, and Conan O'Brien tanks in spectacular fashion, just as we mightily suspect Kaye Bailey Hutchison would, assuming she was to win the Texas governorship. Quickly, the wheels come off both of these very ugly deals, and the Quirky Lightweights go Postal, dragging everybody through the mud in their pursuit of self-fulfillment, including the organizations they both supposedly represent. Corporate ratings plunge. Tens of millions of dollars that could be put to better use are wasted as the Incumbent and Quirky Lightweight thrash each other.

Welcome to the world of Kaye Bailey Hutchison, or KBH as OffHisMeds likes to call her. With little stage presence and no agenda, it's hard to imagine an emptier suit than KBH, a person of few accomplishments in her previous gigs who desires to be advanced anyway; a person completely, totally and consummately interested in one thing: herself.

Think about it. Can you name one piece of legislation associated with her name? Has she advanced the cause of Small Government and spending restraint that characterizes her Party? Has she taken up the fight to nominate and appoint conservative judges? Is she involved in Party-building in any way? Has she ever advocated a controversial position out of principle? Sorry to say, you can readily answer those questions when you're talking about the junior senator from Texas - John Cornyn. I sincerely doubt Hutchison herself could answer them in any compelling fashion when it comes to her own resume. Listen to her campaign commercials for any number of examples, fraught as they are with vague generalities.

Meanwhile, her political career is full of anecdotes showing a Zelig-like political operator, and a person of no real character:

- Before committing to a third term in the Senate in 2005 - and with Perry coming off a successful first full term as governor - KBH was demanding he step aside to allow her to replace him. Perry bucked her and the party elders negotiated the "Jay Leno" scenario described above. Now, who in their right mind tries to replace a very successful fellow Republican after his first term as governor, and at the height of his popularity and power? In what universe is that good for her party or her constituents?

- Early in her first campaign for the Senate, KBH promised to limit herself to two six-year terms. She broke that promise in 2005 after failing to force Perry aside, and ran for a third term in 2006. Last fall, she very vocally supported an amendment introduced to limit Senators to two consecutive terms, oblivious - or more likely simply unconcerned - over the hypocrisy of herself constantly hedging her electoral bets, every action taken simply to retain high office.

- The plot thickens. In 2008, KBH promised to resign from her Senate seat to run for governor. After securing Establishment backing for her campaign, she delayed her resignation, finally claiming last year that she had to stay on "to fight Obama's health care bill". But now that her prospects for governor are bleak, even that promise has quickly been cast aside, with every knowledgeable commentator convinced she will retain her seat after her inevitable primary defeat. In so doing, she sank the chances of a raft of fresh Republican senatorial candidates that might have replaced her, and invigorated those of a raft of Democrats.

The specter of Arlen Specter looms large over her political career: opportunism her only motivation; self-promotion her only goal. It's no accident that you can picture KBH a Democrat as readily as a Republican. Not that Perry is without his baggage. Just as it will be difficult to ever completely forgive Leno for "JayWalking", Perry will carry the Trans-Texas Corridor fiasco around with him like a Scarlet Letter, and deservedly so. But Hutchison's rationale seems to be that Perry's accumulation of political sins - modest by the standards of a two-term governor and doubly so compared to United States Senator Kaye Bailey Hutchison - is all the reason she needs to destroy him. That only begs the question as to why this ugly episode ever came into being in the first place.

Where was the rest of the Republican Party when this storm was brewing? Where were Cornyn, Cheney and W? Where was the bulk of Texas' congressional delegation? In KBH's corner, as it turns out, or safely on the sidelines. Seems as if in their view, like Hutchison's, Washington DC is the center of the universe, and that what Texans really need in a governor is an operative who has that culture oozing from every pore. The short-sightedness of this outlook is astonishing, but were it otherwise, KBH would have been stiffed in her gubernatorial ambitions back in '05.

Without flogging the Leno/O'Brien analogy too much more, I wonder if the Perry/KBH outcome could be engineered the same as Leno/O'Brien: Hutchison agrees to go away, and abandons her party. Perry resumes his campaign for governor, albeit with his reputation battered and his base eroded. The Republican Party is decimated, just as NBC surely was, and primed to be creamed by its relatively unscathed rival. Meanwhile, another perennial underachiever (Bill White), is the beneficiary of all the in-fighting, and he stands to clean up, just as David Letterman has during the Leno/O'Brien contretemps.

The analogy breaks down about there, however, since - unlike Conan O'Brien - Kaye Bailey does not have the option of switching sides. Simply put, there's no place else for her to go, and we're stuck with her until at least 2012. And as she drives the Texas Republican Party into electoral insignificance and provides Bill White a dozen ready-made commercials slamming Perry and featuring her, remember that you heard it here first: Kaye Bailey Hutchison doesn't just suck as a politician.....