Posted on 04/19/2004 7:40:41 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
AUSTIN — Increasing criticism of Gov. Rick Perry by Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has cost her a longtime campaign treasurer.
Houston oil and gas operator George Strake Jr., the comptroller's chief fund-raiser for 20 years, said in an interview Thursday he could "no longer stomach" Strayhorn's strategy of attacking Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and other GOP leaders.
Although she denies it, political insiders say Strayhorn has been positioning herself to either take on Perry in 2006 or maneuver toward another position, like lieutenant governor, should U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison challenge Perry and Dewhurst seek Hutchison's senate seat.
"It's obvious she does want" to run for a higher office, Strake said, but it also was apparent that Strayhorn's criticism does not sit well with some elements of her party.
Strake has extensive ties to establishment Republicans, having served as secretary of state under Gov. Bill Clements and later as state party chairman.
"I just don't like the way she goes after fellow Republicans in public like that," Strake said. "It is not a way to solve problems, and airing your gripes in front of a TV camera, particularly (talking) about the governor ... is in poor taste and just not the Republican way of doing things."
Strayhorn would not comment but released a five-page, handwritten letter dated March 17 in which she warmly thanked Strake and released him from his longtime volunteer position, ending "what has been a most uncomfortable position for you." In it, she relieved him of his fund-raising duties.
But the loss — Strake has been her campaign treasurer since she became a Republican in the early 1980s — made it clear she will continue her criticism.
The governor, she wrote, "does not believe in healthy debate, and anyone who does not take his precise position on every issue is 'taken to the woodshed' threatened, etc.
"Anytime the governor, (his Chief of Staff) Mike Toomey, et. al. disagree with anything I am doing publicly, they start in private spreading rumors," Strayhorn wrote, adding she could no longer subject Strake to being "caught in the middle."
Veteran Austin lobbyist Bill Miller said Strake "is a basic adherent of the Republican's 11th Commandment: 'Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.'
"And (Strake) is not the only one in the party who is uncomfortable" with Strayhorn's criticism, Miller said. It gets attention and visibility, he said, "but the tradeoff is that it alienates people who are not going to support her because of that."
--------------------------ggarcia@express-news.net
She's a nasty, vengeful old woman.
She has no chance against Rick Perry, and I think she knows it.
That's rich for Strayhorn to say, considering she is strongly suspected of spreading some pretty scurrilous rumors about Perry's sex life.
That and the fact that no one knows what last name she will be using by the time the election rolls around.
"Your ad here"...
"Aggressive" is one word for it...
I'm betting the voters of Texas have had quite enough of her.
I'm also hoping that Kay Bailey decides to stay in Washington - she's just not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Her strong support for McCain-Feingold showed what her real "principles" were.
??? Please provide some documentation if you would. I'm interested in understanding her position or positions on the bill. I just got a reply in the mail from her concerning my complaints about CFR. In it she says,
"H.R. 2356, the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, passed the US Senate by a vote of 60 to 40 and was signed into law by President Bush on March 27, 2002. I voted against the bill because I believe it tramples the principles of freedom of speech by restricting broadcast advertising for sixty days before an election. I also found fault with a provision which allowed unregulated special interest groups to raise and spend unlimited amounts of soft money without any real reporting requirements."
She voted against the earlier Senate McCain-Feingold bill, S.B. 27, along with Phil Gramm.
Here is a vote tabulation on an earlier S.B. 25. S.B. 25 vote. John Kerry, John McCain, and Ted Kennedy voted for, Kay Baily Hutchison voted against.
Back in 1998 she may have voted against cloture on a previous CFR bill thereby trying to permit debate to continue.
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