Anyone would be an improvement. A Democratic friend told me today that he'd vote in the GOP primary if it could mean being Perry. Although in a cynical way, it might be best for Democrats to let Rick Perry stumble and mislead until 2010, at which time Texas will be trending more Democratic and people will be so sick of Rick Perry's nonleadership that they'll replace him with a Democrat. Should Strayhorn or Hutchison get the GOP nomination in 2006, I'd bet on them being elected and re-elected easily in 2010. While I wouldn't vote for either, Strayhorn and Hutchison are both competent and have the ability to show leadership. I've never been able to say that about Perry, and after this summer, not with Dewhurst either. Anyway, here's the news with Strayhorn:
Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn may have poured some gasoline on her smoldering feud with Gov. Rick Perry and renewed speculation that she wants her fellow Republican's job in 2006.
Strayhorn on Tuesday rehired longtime political operative Mark Sanders for more than $120,000 a year to oversee her public relations and press office.
When last we saw Sanders, he was the attack dog for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez. Sanders spent most of 2002 unsuccessfully trying to convince Texans that Perry was, in Sanders' own words, a liar, a hypocrite and a lapdog for big insurance.
"Conventional wisdom always says that politics makes strange bedfellows, and this certainly proves that," veteran political consultant Tony Proffitt said Tuesday. "It's bound to give Governor Perry some heartburn. There were some awful hard words exchanged in the campaign."
Sanders' shoot-from-the-hip, made-for-campaign style could make a Republican primary showdown between Perry and Strayhorn, and other potential candidates such as U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, as heated as any general election — especially in an era when winning the GOP primary has become tantamount to winning the general election.
Publicly, Perry took a low-key approach to the announcement of Sanders' new job and said nobody in his office tried to discourage Strayhorn from hiring him.
"All of us make decisions about what's in our best interest, from the standpoint of our staff, by and large, unilaterally," Perry said. "That's not something that people sit around and discuss at length."
Perry also declined to get drawn into a discussion about who might challenge him for the GOP nomination in 2006.
"I don't know and don't waste my time thinking about something that is 2 1/2, 3 1/2 years down the road," he said.
Despite a hiring freeze at her agency for nonessential jobs, Strayhorn on Tuesday also hired veteran Republican press secretary Mark Heckmann as a communications officer.
"Together, these two men bring more than 40 years of experience in communications to the agency," she said in a written statement.
They also bring new nameplates to a pair of offices that have been occupied by a revolving crew of media specialists. In the past three years, Strayhorn has had four press secretaries and two special assistants for communications.
The duties of those jobs will now be split between Sanders and Heckmann, who will earn $122,040 and $114,132, respectively.
Perry pays his top press aides slightly less: $114,400 for his communications director and $98,800 for his press secretary.
[...]
Strayhorn has made several moves that have raised speculation that she's trying to distinguish herself from Perry.
In May, she called for higher cigarette taxes. In June, she threatened not to certify the state's $117 billion budget until Perry trimmed it by about $200 million.
And last week, with Sanders advising her informally, Strayhorn criticized lawmakers and Perry for raising some fees to balance the budget. That salvo prompted Dewhurst to suggest "the Republican primary started early this year" and brought stinging rebukes from just about every other Republican.
The intraparty warfare has made for interesting headlines, but it hasn't threatened any state services.
And Sanders said he and his boss aren't focused on any future election.
"She loves being comptroller 24-7," he said. "But she is never going to say never to people who are asking her to continue serving where she can make a difference."
