Burka: Staring at the Crystal Balls of Rick Perry's Future

In a post called "Perry's Plans (Purported)," Paul Burka discusses in his Burkablog various scenarios in which Rick Perry does not serve out his full term as Governor. One is that Perry becomes the GOP nominee for Vice President in 2008, although it's daily becoming more of a mystery why anyone would want that gig. Imagine the Titanic in those last, tragic hours. Imagine the confusion, panic and terror on the deck as the mighty ship goes down. Now imagine you're going through all that holding a bucket of warm spit.

Burka then spins another scenario, which he suggests may even have been discussed between Perry and Lite Guv David Dewhurst:

[Another] theory is that Perry would step down after the 2009 session, giving himself the opportunity to make oodles of money in the private sector for a year or so, and then seek appointment to the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison (another potential GOP nominee for vice-president), who, it is widely presumed, will run for governor in 2010. Dewhurst would owe Perry a big favor for stepping down and allowing him to face Hutchison as the incumbent. There are two potential monkey wrenches in this scenario, assuming that there is even a grain of truth beyond the conversation between Perry and Dewhurst: (1) Hutchison could squash the whole thing by not resigning her seat (her term doesn't expire until January 2013), giving Dewhurst no vacancy to fill; (2) If she does resign, Perry would have to win a special election to serve the remainder of her term, and he might not want to have to face the voters again.

There's another problem with this theory: Why would Rick Perry want to be a United States Senator?

I mean, everyone wants to be a Senator, yes, but why would Perry? He's been both a legislator and an executive, and he clearly likes being an executive more.

A man of his, ahem, modest intellectual, consensus-building, speechifying and debating talents would disappear in the Senate. (QUICK: Name a Senator from Wyoming. C'mon, just one -- you got two to choose from.)

Perry will have been Governor of the second largest state in the Union for longer than anyone else; why would he want to be a lowly U.S. Senator?