The most unpleasant thing for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison this week must have been her inglorious loss to Gov. Rick Perry in Tuesday's Republican gubernatorial primary.
Second to that has to have been reading and hearing what various people had to say about what she did wrong. Some were already writing her political obituary.
"She took a ... beating," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, in Thursday's Star-Telegram story by Washington reporter Maria Recio. "The only way for her to salvage the last paragraphs of her political biography is to stay on" to complete her term as senator, which runs through 2012.
That's unfair. Hutchison isn't measured by one campaign that went badly for her. Her political biography will be far more about the seven campaigns she has won and her 37 years of public service.
Her decision to run against Perry and her attempt to point out his shortcomings should be viewed as a positive.
Perry's win is largely due to deftly loading Hutchison down with the currently negative image of Washington, D.C. Ironically, now he's among those who want her to go back and continue with her good work there.
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