Redstate Advertising & Strayhorn
By heyyou Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Oh how it pains me to come to my favorite non-sports site and see an ad for Carole Keeton McLellan Rylander Strayhorn. Good ole Carole is even worse than a RINO -- she's a democrat pretending to be a Republican pretending to be an independent running against an incumbent Republican governor. Evidence you say?
Well, shortly after serving as the Democratic mayor of Austin and as Walter Mondale's campaign chair in Travis County (circa 1984), she switched her party affiliation so she could run against popular Democratic congressman JJ Pickle (i.e., there wasn't room for advancement as a democrat). Now she has become an independent because there wasn't room for her to advance to the governor's chair as a republican.
She happily accepts huge contributions from trial lawyers (indeed, brags about it). She has been endorsed by failed democratic politicians such as Tony Sanchez (who was trounced by Perry in the last election). She has wasted taxpayer funds by suing the Republican Secretary of State twice in the last year -- once for not agreeing to count the signatures on her petitions that way she wanted (over half turned out to be invalid) and then for refusing to list her as Carole "Grandma" Strayhorn on the ballot. She got tossed out of court in the first lawsuit and dropped the second prior to getting a court decision.
What else? Well, my recollection is that when campaigning for the comptroller job in 1998, Strayhorn promised not to take donations from people who had cases pending before her office (her campaign says that what she actually promised was to take no contributions from anyone with a case she personally decided). According to her Democratic opponent, she has taken a substantial contributions from entities with business before the comptroller's office. (http://www.chrisbell.com/newsroom/072506_austin)
I had read awhile back that along with changing her name, Strayhorn also changed her political party and then back again. Is there anything to that?
She was a democrat (there's not going to be a Republican mayor in Austin, that's for sure!), then became a Republican, and now is an independent.
"I just would suggest that Perry and his supporters stay out of the personal affairs of his competitors" -- point out where I got into her personal affairs. It seems as though you are the one rolling in the gutter with the accusations against Perry.
"Carole Keeton Strayhorn still seems to be more fiscally conservative" -- how? If you are talking about the property tax reform package, explain how Strayhorn could have been able to get anything better through the Legislature. As it was, Perry called how many special sessions to force the Leg to the table?
"more committed to individual property rights" -- if this is a reference to the Trans Texas Corridor, I hate that project and am not happy with Perry for pushing it. However, Strayhorn's opposition to it was very politically expedient (hmmm, just like her "revers[ing] course to take up a position against universal school choice vouchers and merit pay in order to get the support of teachers unions"). And I also don't appreciate how she shows up at the meetings on this to grandstand and give campaign speeches while citizens are forced to wait behind her to provide input.
"seems to take a tougher stand on border security" -- sorry, but that's just a "huh" to me.
If she was so concerned about saving taxpayer funds, why waste their money forcing the state to defend two completely bogus lawsuits? Or take campaign contributions from a company that suddenly was able to get one of the biggest tax refunds in state history for its client?
The fact of the matter is that I have never given a dime to the Perry campaign (but have contributed to various Rightroots candidates, including earlier today). But what I detest is an opportunistic candidate who flip flops on positions (not to mention party affiliation) simply to try to get elected. If she wants to suck up to the trial lawyers and teaches unions to get elected, are you telling me that she's not going to pursue their agendas to get reelected?
but you nailed here why I'll vote for him over Grandma.
If Carole Keeton Strayhorn hadn't reversed course to take up a position against universal school choice vouchers and merit pay in order to get the support of teachers unions, I would be supporting her.
And yet, Carole Keeton Strayhorn still seems to be more fiscally conservative, more committed to individual property rights, and seems to take a tougher stand on border security than the Republican governor. How sad is that?
This whole school-financing debacle was an opportunity for Perry to display real leadership and push for not only a solution to provide more funding for state education, but also to bring greater market forces to bear through universal school choice vouchers and merit pay instead of mandating where school's should spend their money like would be done in a classic command-and-control communist planned economy along with a very small, limited experiment in merit pay.
"During her stint as comptroller, when she married Strayhorn and changed her name again, it is reported that instead of ordering all new stationery and discarding the old, she simply crossed out "Rylander" on the existing stationery and replaced it with "Strayhorn", as a means of saving taxpayer funds."
If Carole Keeton Strayhorn hadn't reversed course to take up a position against universal school choice vouchers and merit pay in order to get the support of teachers unions, I would be supporting her.
What I despise, however, is the Perry camp's smear job against her - especially ticking off the various surnames she's had. It's really a tasteless and classless attack against a good person who, while slightly to the left of the Republican Governor on a very few issues is also to the right of the Republican on a few issues, too. And like many Texans, has experienced personal failure in the wake of professional success.
After all, Rick Perry's personal life is evidently not exactly a city on a hill. Let's not forget that rumors of a NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey-esque scandal brewing were flying around the Texas just a month or so before Jim McGreevey came out, coincidentally, and I have a well-placed source who says he knows for a fact that First Lady Anita Perry had tearful burst into a prominant Austin divorce attorney's office while all of that was going on. And it is at this time that the Governor took an unofficial trip to the Carribean to plan damage control. None of this is dispositive, but...it sure smells fishy.
I also hope none of the Perry supporters who do this are Giuliani or Gingrich proponants, lest we tick of the names of their ex-wives.
So...I just would suggest that Perry and his supporters stay out of the personal affairs of his competitors and concentrate on ideas and issues that are near and dear to fiscal, free market, and social conservatives in order to take the state forward, successfully. To date, there has very disappointingly been precious little talk of any of this kind coming from the Perry Campaign.