Strayhorn hints against running for governor
Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn indicated Monday she may be about to back away from challenging Gov. Rick Perry in next year’s Republican primary.
Strayhorn’s spokesman, Mark Sanders, issued a statement denying she ever told Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs that she would not seek re-election as comptroller. Combs has been preparing to run for Strayhorn’s office if she vacates it to run for governor.
Say it isn’t so, Carole!
Sanders said in issuing the statement that Strayhorn was not trying to send signals about whether she would seek re-election rather than run for governor. Sanders said Strayhorn just wanted to “set the record straight” about statements attributed to Combs.
Combs was quoted indirectly in Sunday’s Corpus Christi Caller-Times as saying Strayhorn had told her she was not running for comptroller again.
“The people of Texas are certainly asking her (Strayhorn) to run for governor, and she is listening,” Sanders said. “But the comptroller never told Commissioner Combs she is not running for comptroller again, and Commissioner Combs knows it.”
Combs spokesman Reggie Bashur said Combs “agreed” with Strayhorn that Strayhorn “did not tell her directly that she was not seeking re-election.”
Bashur said the Caller-Times article misquoted Combs. The reporter who wrote the story could not be reached for comment. Editors at the paper said they had no information that would cause them to run a correction.
Whew, that’s much better. With or without Kinky Friedman in the Governor’s race, the 2006 elections will be much less fun if there aren’t a few bloody GOP primaries to kick things off. Greg has been saying all along that Strayhorn is doomed in any contested Republican primary, so maybe this is a feint to keep her options open. Who knows?
I tend to agree with what Michael Lind said on January 21 at the New America Foundation: that what we really have in this country are two regional one-party dictatorships. This is particularly evident at the more local level, and I think you see it even in terms of the primaries here. It’s not good when there isn’t any inter-party fighting and debate: that’s quite anti-democratic. Indeed, as Krist Novoselic pointed out at that same event, it’s also quite anti-American in the sense that it counteracts the implications for government inherent in our market economic system. If competition drives the market economy, it should also drive voting. Competition in politics, just like competition in markets, will create new ideas for addressing policy crises we face.
The problem is much greater than the fact that there’s waffling on a challenge to Perry from within the Republican party- a challenge that could have made winning the Texas race a bit easier for the Democrats. It’s the inherent problem of our voting system itself, which tends to reward incumbents and promote regional one-party dictatorships, controlled by a politburo of insiders who make it difficult for challengers to supplant them and democratize the system.
I think the OTG (One Tough Grandma) has been intimidated by Govna Goodhair’s full-court press for endorsements and caysh. To say nothing of the fact that Kay Bailey is also sucking up what’s left of the oxygen.
Carole oughta run for the Senate. Hmmm….