Governors Race Getting Crazier In Texas

The legendary journalist, Molly Ivins, certainly knew what she was talking about when she said politics in Texas is the "finest form of free entertainment ever invented" and "we do not hold high expectations for the [governor's] office; it's mostly been occupied by crooks, dorks and the comatose."   I think she'd be highly entertained by this year's race for the governor's mansion (pictured above).

This year the two major parties have both given us conservatives as candidates -- a Republican who refuses to debate and a Democrat who refuses to release his tax returns from the time he served in Washington.   Both are acting like they have something they don't want the voters to find out.   Add to this the fact that both the Green Party and the Libertarian Party have fielded candidates and we have a real donnybrook heading into November.

But the thing now seems to be turning into a real circus, because a new candidate has just tossed his cowboy hat in the ring.   Orthodontist Andy Barron, a Temple resident originally from Lubbock, has decided to run as an independent write-in candidate.   Barron told the media,   "On June 30th I got this vision from god.   The voice said, 'you've got to run for governor'."

In Texas, a write-in candidate has even less a chance of getting elected to anything than a third-party candidate.   But that fact doesn't seem to bother Barron.   He says,   "I'm going to need a miracle from god to make this happen.   If it happens, people are going to believe that with god's help anything is possible."

Barron is a single-issue candidate.   He wants to put prayer back in the schools.   He either doesn't realize that no one is currently being prevented from praying in school, or he wants to ignore the Constitution and make the schools force students to sit through a government-sanctioned christian prayer (whether they are christians or not).   Barron was asked about real issues (like redistricting, school finance and the $18 billion state deficit), but all he would say is "there is an answer in the Bible."

Meanwhile, there is another poll out on the governor's race.   This one was done by the University of Texas/Texas Tribune pollsters.   They polled 800 Texas registered voters between September 3rd and September 8th.   The poll has a margin of error of 3.46%.   Here are the results:

Rick Perry (Republican)...............39%
Bill White (Democrat)...............33%
Kathie Glass (Libertarian)...............5%
Deb Shafto (Green)...............1%
Undecided...............22%

Of course, that leaves everyone wondering just what that 22% of undecideds will finally wind up doing.   The Democrats say they will vote for White because they're tired of Perry.   The Republicans remind us this is a conservative state and undecideds usually break for the Republican on election day.   I suspect they are both wrong.

There is a third option that no one's talking about -- an option that's much more likely than either of the other two.   They might just stay home.   Like it or not, there is never a 100% turnout of registered voters.   Even in an exciting presidential election year like 2008, only 59.5% of registered voters actually voted (8,077,795 people voted out of 13,575,072 registered voters).   In the 2006 governor's race the figure was down to 33.6%.

So it is highly likely that the 22% of registered voters currently undecided will never make it to the polls (along with some of those who have chosen a favorite).   It won't be known until election day just what the turnout will be, but I doubt it will top the turnout of 2008.   The election won't be decided by the undecided 22%, but by how many Perry and White supporters stay home.

But just for grins let's assume that all of the 78% who have chosen a candidate actually go to the polls and vote.   How would the above numbers translate into election day percentages for the candidates?   Here are the numbers I came up with:

Rick Perry (Republican)...............50.0%
Bill White (Democrat)...............42.3%
Kathie Glass (Libertarian)...............6.4%
Deb Shafto (Green)...............1.3%
Andy Barron (write-in)...............0% (god isn't registered in Texas)