January 2, 2006

Strayhorn Portrays Perry as Partisan Symbol
While Shifting Campaign to Independent Path

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn declared war on partisan politics Monday as she turned her campaign for the state's top job down a new path that she will take as independent candidate instead of challenging Governor Rick Perry in the Republican primary in March.

Strayhorn, who won four statewide elections as a Republican after swtching parties more than 20 years ago, referred to partisan politics and division more than a dozen times while announcing her decision to run for governor as an independent instead of taking Perry head-on in a GOP primary that partisans on both sides believe the incumbent will win.

Strayhorn, whose son Scott McClellan serves as press secretary to President George W. Bush, seemed to borrow a page from the Bush campaign playbook by repeating two or three short stock answers that summed her new theme when fielding questions from reporters at a news conference in front of the elementary school she attended in central Austin a few blocks west of the state Capitol. Surrounded by family members including three granddaughters, one son and the man that she married three years ago, Strayhorn revealed her plans after leading a swarm of journalists and photographers from her campaign headquarters to the site where she made the announcement one block away.

While Strayhorn told reporters that she remains a Republican, she confirmed speculation that she'd bypass the GOP primary and take her chances without the weight of a major political party behind her as the second independent candidate in the governor's race. The two-term state comptroller who served four years on the Texas Railroad Commission in the mid-1990s will compete for support from independent voters and disenchanted Republicans and Democrats with Richard "Kinky" Friedman - a musician and writer who's penned a series of mystery novels.

Democrats Chris Bell and Bob Gammage are seeking their party's nomination in the governor's race while several other candidates who are relatively unknown to voters compete in the GOP primary against Perry. Bell is a former congressman from Houston while Gammage served in the Texas House and Senate before a brief U.S. House stint on his way to becoming an appellate judge until his election to the Texas Supreme Court. The month-long filing period for the March 7 primary election came to an end at 6 p.m. Monday.

Strayhorn, who's 66 years old, contended that Perry is responsible for "a culture of political division that has brought government to a grinding halt." On Perry's watch, Strayhorn asserted, higher property taxes have climbed, insurance rates have gone up, the border has been abandoned, toll roads have been planned and state government has grown while broken schools have been neglected.

"Under Rick Perry, it is us against them," Strayhorn said. "Republicans against Democrats. Democrats against Republicans. Even Republicans against Republicans. "The sad fact is that this governor has so politically fracutured our state - so made it one against the other - that the only way to bring Texas back together is to have independent leadership."

Perry "has undone the biopatisan spirit of this state and made effective governance all but impossible," the comptroller insisted.

Despite Strayhorn's asssertion that she was not leaving the GOP, Republican Party officials in Texas wasted no time in trying to disown her.

“Today the truth has come out: Carole Strayhorn is no Republican,” State GOP Chairwoman Tina Benkiser said. “Grassroots Republicans should be outraged that Carole Strayhorn has lied, deceived and now abandoned the very people who put her in office all for her own selfish ambition.”

Former Republican National Committeeman Tim Lambert of Lubbock said Strayhorn's announcement is "a sure sign that her campaign for governor was heading nowhere fast." Lambert predicted that Texans of all political persuasions will "tune her out in a relatively quick fashion."

Even Strayhorn's former campaign treasurer joined the chorus of critics when ex-Texas Republican Chairman George Strake Jr. suggested that the comptroller had set back Bush in his attempts to build the GOP nationwide with her political maneuvering.