The Chronicle editorial board can hardly contain its glee at the prospects of a GOP gubernatorial slapfest as the primary slowly approaches:
Over the weekend combative Texas Comptroller and gubernatorial challenger Carole Keeton Strayhorn lobbed electronic grenades at incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, accusing him of trying “to tax rather than lead.” She even employed one of the worst epithets in the conservative Republican playbook, comparing Perry to a “Washington liberal.” Perry’s campaign folks did her one better, likening Strayhorn’s tactics to those of banker Tony Sanchez, the Democratic nominee Perry handily defeated in 2002.
That’s a little boring, though. In The Pink, clearly lacking the “elegance, wit and insight one looks for in … editorial pages in their ideal state” has a lot more fun with the Republican candidates.
The editorial board repeats the newspaper’s tired act of citing Democratic activist and UH Professor Richard Murray without identifying that he’s now out of the closet as a Democratic partisan:
“We’re in uncharted waters here,” University of Houston Center for Public Policy Director Richard Murray said. Since the Republicans last held sway in the state during Reconstruction in the 19th century, there’s little precedent for what happens when a new majority party emerges and encounters a contest for leadership. Murray wondered whether the fight between a sitting governor facing a formidable challenger would return primary voting turnout to high levels.
Murray likened the developing Texas situation to Kansas, where Republicans have split into moderate centrists and Christian conservatives. Occasionally a Kansas Democrat wins statewide office because the moderate Republicans refuse to back the conservative nominee.
Murray’s partisan preferences should be identified when he is commenting on political parties, so readers will have enough information to decide if he’s speaking as a partisan, as a professor, or both.
UPDATE: It seems I led this post much like Sedosi Alhambra led his related post. I guess we’re thinking alike, because I hadn’t seen it earlier. But I don’t want anyone confusing me with Rick Casey, so I thought I should clarify. 🙂
