Last week, Dan Balz of the Washington Post wrote a compelling story about the 2010 Texas gubernatorial race, linking it to potential Democratic State Mansion pickups in three states, including California and Florida. I will add some credence to this in that last summer when I was in D.C. jockeying for some national attention and money for Texas, I got a nod from a savvy pol who said, "Texas, if not precisely in play, has become a state of interest".
Republicans can no longer expect a "wave through" with their side of the ballot being the default choice. And this presents a major challenge to the sitting governor, Rick Perry, who would prefer to run a "front-porch" campaign in which he could ignore the Democratic Challenger Bill White. This was his stated intent, but when the early polls came out showing White in position to blast past him, Perry immediately launched negative and attack ads. Hardly the reaction of one "ignoring" his challenger.
Perry is a career politician who ascended to the office when Bush was elected president and who has run election twice on his own. Despite his decade-long tenure in the office, Governor Perry has not achieved any lasting or memorable accomplishments. To the contrary, his efforts to force vaccination of pre-teen girls with against STDs and launch a pet project which would have seen family homes, farms and ranches taken over to build a "Trans Texas Corridor" which would have enriched a Spanish company both came up short.
Both were bad ideas, that as time passed and Texans became more aware of the ramifications of both, pretty much died prior to birth! Neither added any luster to a governor already reviled by working families, school teachers, and individuals turned off by his matinee idol hubris and arrogance. His $10,000 dollar a month rental (at tax payer expense) of a mansion while the governor's mansion undergoes repairs won him no champions of fiscal responsibility.
Earlier, we endorsed Bill White as our choice in this coming election. But, today our focus is on Perry and the reasons why the Democrats for the first time in years are poised for success. The anti-incumbency mood coupled with the populist sentiment of "a pox on both their houses" both work to the advantage of the Democrats. Texans are painfully aware of an 8.4 percent rate of unemployment, a budget shortfall that could approach $20-billion while Perry parrots old anti-Obama, anti-Washington rhetoric which has no relation to the state's problems.
By all accounts, Perry should loose this election, and it is becoming more-and-more obvious that Perry very well could loose! Texas, The Eyes Of The Nation Are Upon You.
Read the full WaPo article here.
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