to 1010 Colorado St, Austin, TX

I’ve seen it many times over the years in business. A new guy shows up, he was unexpected. He seems fine at first and then he starts cleaning house, reorganising, people get fired, departments get cut and before you know it, he is gone. Paid off handsomely, publicly, because they wanted his silence, privately because he’d done his job, he was Leon, The Professional.

What happens next is the old guard regroup, they step out of the shadows and everything goes just the way they wanted it. The hired guy was the fall guy, the one to take the heat.

Here in Texas we are a year out from the election for a new governor, and the race has most definitely started. Texas Monthly magazine October 2013 has a profile of who it calls unequivocally, “THE GOV*”  with the * denoting “barring an unlikely occurrence”  and it includes this picture.

In a long background piece on the current Texas attorney general,  Greg Abbott,  it says

• “is a conservative’s conservative”
• “has sued the Obama administration 27 times”
• “Filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that the Second Amendment provides citizens with an individual right to bear arms”

Abbott is my age, he represents and is focussed on appealing to the traditional Texas ol’ boys, guns, small government, low taxes, low regulation etc.

Texas monthly carries an article on the likely competitors to Abbott, but given Abbott resplendent with Shotgun and Wheelchair is featured on the front page, and their prediction, that Abbott will be “The Gov” barring an unlikely occurrence, you can’t take them too seriously.

Not so much what’s in, More what’s not.

More interesting, although explainable given the timing of the magazine print edition, and the announcement by Debra Medina, that she is considering a run for governor, as an Independent. Medina lost in the 2010 Republican Party Primary Election, taken by Governor Perry. Medina, had been raising money for a state comptroller bid, said, according to this Texas Tribune report, “has received millions of dollars in pledges on the condition that she instead run for governor as an independent.”. Would that make Medina, Leonora?

The Trib’ focuses on Medina ability to change the outcome of the election without either hinting or mentioning the Democratic front-runner, Wendy Davis. The Trib’ says “One way to win an election is to change the electorate. That’s not as nefarious as it might sound”.. “Another way is to split the votes among more than two candidates. In primaries, that often forces runoffs. In general elections, third-party candidates can sometimes grab enough votes to change the outcome.” And they go on to review Bush vs Clinton, and Perot.

Who ever is offering Medina millions to run as an Independent for Governor, isn’t doing it to split the vote of the Republicans, she will be a shill, put in to collect the votes of the more liberal, center leaning Republicans, especially the growing, base of GOP Women voters. Those voters, even the more christian right, must be horrified by recent moves including State bill HB2 that will have a drastic effect on both womens services as well as the ability, choice and availability of a great number of womens services.

Given an appropriate campaign by Democrat Wendy Davis, there was always the chance Davis would not only been able to muster the democratic and independent candidates, but also those of many Republican women. With Medina in as a shill, she can appeal and win that vote, denying Davis. Heck, Medina can come in and participate in an all out catfight with Davis, while Abbott et al. wait in the shadows, only to appear on election night after the “public” dismal of Medina aka The Professional.