Strayhorn enters governor’s race as independent
It’s time to shake Austin up. Governor Perry may be doing the best he can, but after five years, we have learned he is not the strong leader we need to put Texas above politics.
- Carole Keeton Strayhorn
Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Republican. Public Servant. Political Opportunist. Yes, Carole Keeton Strayhorn is many things, but in her wildest hallucinations, I don’t imagine that she EVER thought she might possibly end up being responsible for a Democrat being the next Governor of Texas. Her decision to enter the Texas Governor’s race as an independent may end up doing just that.
Governor Goodhair, mediocrity though he may be, likely has a lock on the Republican nomination. You’ve got to wonder if he has pictures of Tom Craddick caught in flagrante delicto with Dakota Fanning and Haley Jeol Osment. What must he have on the rest of this state’s Republican leadership to have such a lock on the party’s nomination? It’s not as if he’s actually accomplished anything noteworthy over the past five years.
It’s difficult to imagine that anyone could possibly make George W. Bush’s tenure as Governor look like Texas’ version of Ronald Reagan, but Rick Perry has done exactly that. I’m not certain just what he’s spent the past five years doing, but apparently not doing nothing is the ticket to re-election if you’re a Republican in this state.
But, I digress. If we’re going to have two three Republicans in the general election, this has got to bode well for Democrat Chris Bell. Three Republicans (Oh, yeah, I almost forgot…Kinky Friedman’s in there somewhere- he last ran for office as a Republican) and Bell. At this point, Bell’s strategy seems to be to wait for the Three Stooges to beat each other up so badly that he can sneak in behind them.
I like Chris Bell, but I’ve got to wonder why he is still waging a stealth campaign. OK, so Election Day is still 10 months away, and Bell’s campaign has got to allocate scarce financial resources in such a way that he still has a chance in October and November. Still, Bell’s been presented with a golden opportunity. It’s quite possible that the Republican vote might be split three ways, leaving no one with enough votes to defeat Bell. The only realistic way that this is going to happen, though, is if Chris Bell gets busy letting Texans know who he is and what he’s about. And that needs to start happening NOW.
