“I am Carole Keeton Strayhorn and I am running for Mayor of Austin.”
And with those words began the campaign speech of the former Austin mayor, state comptroller, and gubernatorial candidate, capping months of speculation whether she would enter the race. The road hasn’t exactly been paved for her: the city council enacted law prohibiting candidates from using campaign funds amassed in other races, as she had running for Governor. Plus, it remains to be seen whether Strayhorn, a former Democrat turned Republican gone Independent, can click with Austin’s liberal voters, and whether the possible entry of Mike Levy into the race might splinter her support, those voters to the right of Brewster McCracken or Lee Leffingwell.
The announcement was subtly but decidedly to the right of Austin politics. Strayhorn promised to “pass a real budget with real numbers,” and castigated the city for approving a budget with “$137 million more dollars than what everyone knew would be coming in this year.” (Newsdesk is parsing the data Strayhorn cited for this claim, but still can’t see the defecit. Good thing she used to be comptroller!) She also foresaw “fixing, not studying, our transportation problems,” and an end to putting small businesses “through the meat grinder” of regulation. The whole affair had a decidedly bootstrappy je ne sais quoi; Strayhorn garnered applause mentioning the event host, banking software company BancVue, had grown “without any incentives.”
“This race is about our future and we can’t change our future without knowing our past,” Strayhorn said in a nod to her previous experience in the mayor’s office. Whether or not the city agrees will be, for her, the story of the 2009 race.
This article appears in January 9 • 2009.