As expected, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn [YOUR LAST NAME HERE] has quit the GOP and is running for governor as an independent.

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn ended speculation today by announcing she will run for governor against Gov. Rick Perry as an independent.

"It's time to shake Austin up," Strayhorn, who is now serving as a Republican officeholder, told reporters today, the filing deadline for the 2006 elections.

"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," she added.

Satirist Kinky Friedman already has announced as an independent candidate for governor.

The major candidates in the Democratic primary are Chris Bell of Houston, a former congressman, and Bob Gammage, a former Houston congressman and Texas Supreme Court justice who now lives in Llano.

Strayhorn, who was first elected comptroller in 1998 as a Republican, had announced in June that she would challenge Perry for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. But last week she refused to dismiss speculation that she would run as an independent to avoid Perry's strong popularity in the GOP primary.

Let's face it -- Rick Perry has long had this thing sewn up. As a result, the only chance that Strayhorn ever had was a three-way primary that included Kay Bailey Hutchison. Kay decided to stay in the Senate, demolishing any chance that Perry would have lost in a primary dominated by the conservative wing of the party. After all, Carole has always been a moderate-to-liberal Republican, and was a Democrat not all that long ago.

I thnk that Chris Elam over at Safety for Dummies puts it best when he makes this observation.

[Y]ou were an opportunist who changed parties when the state's political landscape changed around you. You spent months and thousands of dollars running radio ads against Rick Perry, and his poll numbers went up.

You're in over your head, and you won't admit it. Now you're reduced to splitting the Kinky vote. Republicans won't touch you, and Democrats are unimpressed.

Enjoy retirement. Rick Perry sends his well wishes.

One son has left the Bush administration to work for your doomed campaign. I bet that your other son, Scott McClellan, is glad that he hasn't quit his day job as the president's Press Secretary.

And here are two pieces from Lone Star Times.

Posted by: Greg at 11:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 409 words, total size 3 kb.