Strange Doings in Texas Governor Race

As the official filing deadline for Texas’ March primaries looms only days away, an interesting tale has come to light of an intriguing contact between a Republican campaign aide and a Democratic candidate’s wife.

A top aide to Republican gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn called Democratic candidate Chris Bell’s wife last week and suggested that Bell drop out of the governor’s race and instead run for comptroller.

Strayhorn spokesman Mark Sanders said he told Alison Bell that “there would be support for him” if Chris Bell ran to succeed Strayhorn as comptroller. Sanders said that he and Alison Bell have known each other since they worked on a campaign together 15 years ago and that he wanted to advise his longtime friends that they could not win the governor’s race.

Sanders said that the call was not prompted by Strayhorn or any campaign donors and that he was not trying to clear the Democratic field for Strayhorn to switch parties.

“I made this call to Alison on my own out of a sense of concern for them and their family,” Sanders said. “And I did not make this call in reference in any way to the comptroller’s gubernatorial campaign.”

Chris Bell said that he will not run for comptroller and that there was no mention in his wife’s conversation with Sanders of Strayhorn running as a Democrat.

Although Sanders said that he did not call on Strayhorn’s behalf, the conversation follows a series of signs that Strayhorn’s effort to beat Gov. Rick Perry in next year’s Republican primary is struggling. Strayhorn has faced questions in recent weeks about whether she would abandon her GOP bid and instead run as an independent, and the campaign has not completely ruled out an independent run. Perry, meanwhile, has been piling up endorsements from conservative activists, trade associations and elected GOP officials.

Bell said it is not unusual for Sanders and his wife to talk.

“They did talk last week, and he mentioned the fact that if I were to exit the governor’s race and run for comptroller, he thought there would be some support for me from some unnamed individuals,” said Bell, a former congressman from Houston. “And obviously since that was the gist of the conversation, I didn’t take it the least bit seriously.”

This would seem to be a clear sign of desperation on the behalf of the Strayhorn campaign. The Burnt Orange Report‘s Damon McCullar agrees.

Well, it’s a little under two weeks until the filing deadline and it seems that One Tough Grandma is have an identity crisis. With her poll number in the Republican primary in the sub-basement, it seems to me that Carol Four-Names is shopping around for a way to run for Governor.

First, as noted here at BOR she floated a poll about running as an Independent.

Now it seems as if she is trying clear the field in the Democratic Primary to run as a Democrat.

I disagree with McCullar’s thinking that Strayhorn is considering switching to the Democrat side — make that switching back to the Democrats, as she has already changed parties before (not an unusual occurrence over the last couple of decades in the always-conservative but once Democrat-dominated Texas). Were Strayhorn to switch back, Texans would shun her for the obvious opportunism. As it is, this ploy could sink her with conservatives; a candidate already carrying a Republican-in-name-only reputation should not have an aide trying to get a Democrat to run against a currently-unopposed Republican, Susan Combs, for comptroller.

No, I think the hope here was to thin the Democrat field but not for a party change. The current Democratic candidates, according to Politics1.com, are as follows:

• Felix Alvarado (D) – Middle School Assistant Principal, USAF Veteran & ’02/’04 Congressional Nominee
• Chris Bell (D) – Ex-Congressman, Ex-Houston City Councilman & Attorney
• Bob Gammage (D) – Ex-State Supreme Court Justice, Ex-Congressman, Ex-State Sen. & Navy Veteran

Were either Bell or Gammage step aside, the Democratic candidate would essentially be settled, and that is precisely the hope of this maneuver. Texas is an open primary state; unlike some other states, voters do not have to declare a party affiliation upon registering and can vote in whichever party’s primary they choose. With Strayhorn campaign trending so bad, I feel that this ploy was meant to enable a high Democratic cross-over voting for the One Tough RINO, possibly Strayhorn’s best chance to knock off incumbent Perry.