The Great Texas Four-way
"I am a Republican, but I know we must set partisan politcs aside and do what's right for Texas. That is why I am running for governor as a Texas Independent. We can't wait any longer. It's time to shake Austin up."
QR breaks the story and Carole Strayhorn is now running as an independent. Things are officially VERY interesting in the Lone Star State.
UPDATE 1.0: Jason, over at Team Bell, is first out of the gate with some instant analysis of the move.
UPDATE 2.0: KXAN is the first newsie out of the gate with the story, it seems.
UPDATE 3.0: Umm, here's something to really make a lot of us web dweebs smack our foreheads perhaps ... was there nothing worth reading into the fact that Carole's campaign website was pretty much scrubbed of any reference to the word "Republican" before the announcement? Internet archives don't have any prior version that shows when it last DID have a GOP reference, however. So when did the party affiliation references get the axe from the site?
UPDATE 4.0: I'm still sorting out some algebraic formulas that let me better read whatever tea leaves might be on the ground for the Guv race, but one early winner in all of this would appear to be downballot Dems. Anything that encourages more ticket splitting is good for them ... sure would be a wise move to get a few of those still-on-the-fence campaign filers to file in light of this.
UPDATE 4.1: Speaking of down-ballot Dems ... the list of unchallenged State Rep districts seems to be at 46. That's already improvement over 2004, which had (IIRC) 54. Definitely a better job of challenging all of the top-level races on the table.
There's also all of 3 unchallenged US House seats left as I type (2, 11, & 24). State Senate, always a tougher beast, has 7 out of 16 seats unchallenged, with SD17 as the only glaring available challenge. However ... Bret Baldwin has filed for SD18 and there's no report of Robby Cook moving over to that race. It could be that Baldwin is the fallback and that his name there means Cook has decided to stay in his House seat. Maybe.
UPDATE 5.0: How long before we get all the media reports about "The I's of Texas"???
The TDP site doesn't have all of the Dallas County candidates that filed today. The full listing for Dallas County is available here:
http://dallasdemocrats.org/Lists/2006%20Candidates/AllItems.aspx
We have candidates in 13 of 16 state rep districts and all congressional districts in Dallas. Additionally, there is a near full slate of judicial candidates and multi-candidate primaries for DA and County Clerk.
There are rumors flying that a Dem activist is about to announce his candidacy in 24.
This is all very exciting. As I told my cousin in North Carolina, "the closest parallel I can think of is the 1860 presidential election". That may be a slight exaggeration -- at least I hope so -- but the campaign strategic options, from every candidate's point of view, are limited only by their consultants' creativity. Carole Keeton's (she'll always be a deb to me) decision helps everyone except Perry, but he is by no means down for the count.
It helps Carole, for many obvious reasons. She can pull moderate Democratic votes, particularly women and social moderates critical of Bell's support of civil unions and a feminist agenda (I pulled that from a magazine interview he did a few months back). She can pull moderate Republicans desperate to keep control, but equally desperate to replace Perry. She also is the most experienced government official in the history of Texas to run for governor.
But it ain't all good news for her. The middle can be a tough place to run from, since the more she pulls for the moderate vote, the more that Perry can rally the right against her. If Democrats can run united, we have an excellent chance. Either Bell or Gammage can do well in this scenario. Bell has an organizational advantage over Gammage, but Gammage has the advantage of no recent record (or careless interviews) to run against. Advantage, Bell, but whoever wins will have proven his strength and capability for the fall.
Friedman benefits in a couple of ways, depending on how well Bell/Gammage does. Friedman and Gammage are running for similar professed reasons, which is Bell's weakness as a candidate. It is certainly nonconventional wisdom to suggest that a Congressman who got stomped 2 to 1 in his last re-election bid could go on to win a statewide race, but hey! This is Texas! We can do whatever the hell we want! We'll have to wait and see if Gammage can walk the walk as well as he talks the talk.
Friedman's run is now validated by Carole's decision; it is now very Establishment to be an independent. His decision to hire Jessie Ventura's campaign manager now appears prescient, as this campaign will benefit from creativity perhaps more than any other asset. Before, the comparisons to the Minnesota governor's race were pale. Now they are, at least to Friedman, promising. Question is, will folks continue to be discouraged by Democratic prospects? Or will the the change in events put a new lease on life in the GOD (Grand Old Democrats) Party's options? Will the high-dollar trial lawyers flee Friedman for the Democrats again? Prediction: Friedman better reduce the wise-cracking and starting announcing some serious intentions, or his candidacy will be marginalized to less than 5% from his current 15% in the polls. If he does an about-face, he can do much better and in the process, kill the Democrat's chances of beating Rick-Carole.
It's anyone's race to win, although I think Friedman is the longest shot. This could be a year that shatter records and re-aligns political relationships. A lot of folks may say only a D-R-I (Democrat-Republican-Independent) can heal the partisan rifts in state government today. Considering that Bell and Perry have been equally partisan in the last year, and Carole has spent most of her time bashing a fellow Republican, that's not an entirely dubious proposition.