Kay has, just yesterday, explicitly denied interest in the Ambassador post. She is still thinking about challenging Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) in the GOP primary in 2006. However, if she wanted to stay in the Senate, she would be offered the #3 leadership post the Senate Republican Conference Chair in the 110th Congress (2007-2008).
www.politics1.com has this story (look under Thursday News Update)
Funny, everybody's bribing her so she doesn't take on Perry. I wouldn't mind her doing that. Perry may be closer to me ideologically, but he seems like an empty suit to me. I still prefer him to that idiot we have in Alabama though.
You're right; he's an empty suit. In theory he's the more conservative candidate, but not particularly or avowedly so, it's just something that is and he won't hesitate to use it against Kay if he feels he has to. She's my favorite of the two, too. But no one wants the Texas party to tear itself apart. We Republicans like to boast of our unity (compared to the Democrats); while in some ways it's always been a fiction and in other ways it's become completely untrue (many more moderate Republicans than moderate Dems these days, though neither branch has much power) we'd rather not tear ourselves apart.
The Republican Party is Texas is one of the most astute parties in the nation at present (and has been for about 10 years now).
They recognize they don't want any inter-party fights and are doing their best to keep any from happening.
Simply put, the Democrats are out of power, out of money, out of candidates and the Republicans in the state want it to stay that way.
Fortunately for them, Texas has always been one of the states in the US that leans most towards being a one-party state. For a long time when the Democrats were in power, a good number of Republicans and Democrats agreed on any number of issues, and for the most part, it's stayed that way, just the overall balance has shifted a bit.
