Posted on 06/18/2005 12:43:09 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
AUSTIN With the Capitol as a backdrop and a scorching sun beating down, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn turned the political heat up on Gov. Rick Perry today, formally announcing as a challenger to his re-election.
Strayhorn, saying she will run against Perry in next year's Republican primary, wasted no time in attacking her new opponent.
"You know that Texans cannot afford another four years of a governor who promises tax relief and delivers nothing," she said.
"Now is time to replace this do-nothing drugstore cowboy with one tough grandma," Strayhorn told a cheering crowd.
Strayhorn specifically criticized Perry for his decision today to veto the state's $35 billion education budget and call a new special session without having a plan on how to overhaul public school finance.
"A leader does not call a fifth special session costing taxpayers another $1.5 million dollars when he does not have a plan," she said. "A leader does not hold our children's education hostage and certainly would never even allow a discussion about schools not opening on time."
Strayhorn offered two specific suggestions on what she would do as governor. One is to pass her proposed program to pay for two years of college for every high school graduate. And the other is to legalize video lottery terminals with the revenue going to pay for a teacher pay raise.
Strayhorn has been able to brag in her statewide elections in 1996 and 2002 that she was the top vote-getter among Republican candidates in the general election.
But both times Strayhorn has been on the Republican primary ballot at the same time as the governor, Perry has received more of the primary vote. When she was running for re-election in 2002 and Perry was seeking election as governor, Perry received 80,000 more GOP primary votes than Strayhorn.
The GOP primary race was clarified on Friday when U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison announced she would seek re-election rather than join the contest to unseat Perry.
Strayhorn, 65, has a political career that has grown from local Travis County politics to statewide office.
The daughter of University of Texas law school Dean Page Keeton, she grew up in a world of politics and powerful people.
Strayhorn was the first woman president of the Austin School Board. She also was the first woman mayor of Austin, serving from 1977 to 1983.
Like Perry, Strayhorn was once a Democrat. She was the state co-chair of Democrat Walter Mondale's unsuccessful challenge to President Reagan's re-election.
Democratic Gov. Mark White appointed Strayhorn as a member of the State Board of Insurance in 1983, and while serving there she switched to the Republican Party.
In 1986, Strayhorn ran an unsuccessful challenge to incumbent U.S. Rep. J.J. "Jake" Pickle, D-Austin.
Strayhorn also lost a 1992 GOP primary for Texas Railroad Commission. Two years later she won election to the office and was re-elected in 1996.
Strayhorn won her current position as comptroller in 1998 and was re-elected in 2002. The job is that of state tax collector and revenue estimator.
Strayhorn has been married three times and has been known politically as McClellan, Rylander and Strayhorn. Her current husband, Ed, runs a company that builds tennis courts.
She has four sons, two of whom work in the Bush presidential administration. Dr. Mark McClellan is the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Scott McClellan is President Bush's press secretary. Sons Brad and Dudley McClellan are both lawyers.
Can't wait to vote against her in the primary.
Big Mouth
Spineless Jellyfish
Kinky Friedman
This was from a 12/03 thread.
CK Whatever isn't going to win too much GOP support attacking the redistricting sessions. Someone should ask her if she would have backed down to the runaway democrat tactics.
just kidding
She's gonna get smoked. The only folks that will vote for here are closet dems and people who are so stupid that they would vote for that idiot Kinky.
Rylander can't gripe about the budget. Her key job is to help address those issues. Including School Finance.
It was up to her office to help come up with plans. She didn't have any. All she would do was be critical of every plan....so she could get media attention and run for gov.
HOW LONG DOES THAT DUMPY WENCH THINK SHE CAN KEEP PUSHING THAT "TOUGH TALKIN' GRANDMA" LINE????????
That is all Rylander is.....talk. Perry got us a start to tort reform (worked his tail off for it)......made Texas #1 on business lists. And has cut wastefull agencies.
Rylander will only get the vote of ambulance chasers.
Let's see....
Long Time Democrap
Current RINO
Does more to help Dems.
Daughter of a dean of ambulance chasers.
Spoke against tort reform.
AND IT SEEMS NOBODY CAN STAND TO BE MARRIED TO HER!
I'd say she is just running to help democraps.
She knows she won't win the primary.....she just wants to help waste funds......and give her true partners...DEMOCRAPS...a helping boost.
As expected, Strayhorn announces for governor
Comptroller vows to topple 'do nothin' drugstore cowboy'
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, June 18, 2005Carole Keeton Strayhorn withstood mid-day heat today to declare her candidacy for governor, promising a white-hot campaign against Gov. Rick Perry leading to the March 7 Republican primary.
With the north entrance of the Capitol as a backdrop, Strayhorn spoke from a platform placed on Congress Avenue, saying: "Now is the time to replace this do nothin' drugstore cowboy with one tough grandma.
"Rick Perry has promised any challenger in his own words, and I quote, 'A bloody brutal campaign.' If that is the campaign he promises to wage, bring it on."
The second-term state comptroller, joined by her husband, Eddie, and family members, confirmed expectations with her declaration in front of some 500 cheering supporters. It came 18 hours after U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison released a statement revealing her intentions to seek re-election to the Senate rather than attempt a run for governor.
Strayhorn, 65, used her early political career in Austin she was mayor and school board president to climb to statewide office. Her political career has dipped and turned since she left the Texas Democratic Party to become a Republican in time to lose a U.S. House bid to Rep. J.J. "Jake" Pickle of Austin in 1986. The crowd observed a moment of silence as Pickle's death earlier today was announced.
Strayhorn subsequently lost to Barry Williamson, then of Dallas, in the 1992 GOP primary for the Texas Railroad Commission.
But the one-time schoolteacher whose father, Page Keeton, was the celebrated dean of the University of Texas School of Law, bounced back.
In 1998, the year Republicans took hold of all 29 statewide elected positions, Strayhorn narrowly bested Democratic nominee Paul Hobby of Houston to become comptroller. In her re-election bid four years later, she out-drew every other statewide candidate, winning 2.9 million votes to swamp Democratic challenger Marty Akins of Marble Falls.
If elected, Strayhorn would become the third woman to become governor. Miriam "Ma" Ferguson won two-year terms in 1924 and 1932, and Ann Richards, the former Travis County commissioner and state treasurer, served one term before losing re-election to George W. Bush in 1994.
Strayhorn will be trying to deny Perry a record 10 years as governor.
Perry had scheduled a press conference shortly before Strayhorn's, where he announced he was vetoing the public school finance budget and calling the Legislature back for a special session to address the issue. Asked about Strayhorn before her announcement, Perry said, "politics is just white noise in the background" of his call for a special session.
It is tempting, isn't it? ;-D
Carole Keeton Landrover
Governor "good hair" Perry
Richard "Kinky" Friedman
hmmmmmmm
I will do everything I can to make sure this grandma goes home.
Take a hike, Stray-Beech!!
Strayhorn announces candidacy for Governor (TX)
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Me too
Warmed up Ann Richards leftovers
Does anyone know her spokesman Mark Sanders? Was he on the SREC in the 1980s?
Sanders began his career with the Houston Post. He has worked for the Republican Party of Texas, Kent Hance, President George H. W. Bush, Rob Mosbacher, Jr., the 1996 GOP National Convention, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, three years as Special Assistant for Communications for Comptroller Strayhorn, and gubernatorial nominee Tony Sanchez.
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