KBH's fruitless pursuit

So Kay Bailey Hutchison is saying she'll resign her U.S. Senate seat sometime in October or November to run for governor of Texas. I don't understand why. She has absolutely no chance of winning a gubernatorial election. She's planning on committing political suicide by voting against the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and to make sure Texans continue to be denied adequate health care. Those two moves would doom her in a general election even if she were to get that far, which she won't because Gov. Hair has already outflanked her on the right. Hair will have no problem defeating KBH in the primary because he has already secured the support of the right-wingnuts that decide the GOP nominee in any Texas primary.

Now KBH is not dumb. I think she knows the above is true as well, but she has decided this will be a more graceful way of retiring from politics instead of doing something incredibly stupid like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation ploy or just an announcement not to seek re-election like the recent one from Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning. This way she won't have to answer the "why" question.