This morning on WFAA's Inside Politics in the Dallas/Fort-Worth media market, Houston Mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White, revealed he was considering a ballot switch as early the day prior to Farouk Shami's entrance into the race on November 19th.
When Mayor White was asked by Brad Watson, How much of a challenge will it be to run against Farouk Shami? White answered:
He can pour some millions into the race. In fact, I know Farouk and met with him the night before he announced and told him I was reconsidering my decision, so I'm not sure where that comes from.
White's answer is the first real glimpse of internal campaign deliberations where he was contemplating a switch to the gubernatorial race even days before meeting with Tom Schieffer. The meeting with the former ambassador in which Schieffer offered to abandon his gubernatorial race if White would enter might have been the deciding factor---that and the positive responses from thousands of Texans.
Brad Watson and Gromer Jeffers continued to press White as to whether he was worried about Shami's ability to self-fund his campaign; therefore forcing White to spend his sizeable financial war chest in the primary versus the general election:
I don't know, I'm not the political guru, but I have deep broad support from both within my own Party and outside of my Party. And when people who don't know me get to know the sort of business experience I bring to the job and the results that we've been able to get in Houston, then people are willing to help. We have hundreds of volunteers-thousands really across the state, and I'm blessed to have a lot of public support.
Ideally you would like for the field to be cleared for White, but I have far more confidence in White's ability to not only raise money without federal limits, but also resonate quickly with primary voters in a manner that will make it difficult on Shami to gain much traction in this race. The field continues to clear enough to where a runoff is unlikely and White's entry into the race solidifies Hutchison's inability to attract un-energized, disenchanted Democrats into a GOP primary. That all translates to more energized Democrats voting in the Democratic primary.
Given Hutchison's fate, the question of whether White would prefer to run against Hutchison or Perry was an easy softball for the Clinton-era Deputy Secretary of Energy:
What Texans have said who have e-mailed me, and you can see some of those at www.billwhitefortexas.com and they have said they can't afford another four years of Rick Perry and I agree with that.
On the heels of Friday's gubernatorial launch, Mayor Bill White has enjoyed rather positive press coverage throughout the weekend and gives his campaign an energy boost leading into a new week in a new race.
