Well, the mystery is finally over and the GOP path to the 2006 gubernatorial nomination for incumbent Rick Perry has been cleared as Carole Keeton Strayhorn, current state Comptroller and the only threatened in-party challenger, has filed to run 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.
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To get on the ballot as an independent, Strayhorn will need to collect the signatures of 45,450 registered voters who cast ballots in neither party primary or runoff. The signatures will have to be collected between March 8 and May 11.
Anticipating Strayhorn’s independent candidacy, Perry spokesman Robert Black last week said it would demonstrate “the latest desperate act of a politician who has no core convictions or guiding principles.”
The lady had little chance in the GOP race and chose probably the worst option of the many before her.
This post is actually more of a eulogy for a political career, at least on a Texas state-wide basis. After the revelation of a strange Strayhorn campaign contact with Democrat candidate Bell’s wife, Strayhorn has decided to jump the Republican ship. Having already switched from Democrat to Republican, Strayhorn can now be cast as a turncoat by both parties.
Assuming both Strayhorn and Friedman meet the ballot requirements for an independent candidacy, it should be an interesting race for third place between the two and the Libertarian party candidate.