Never mind the months of campaign stops and commercials and attacks. A preacher from Allen is betting that many voters still haven't found the right candidate for governor.
Fran Cavenaugh is planning an independent bid for governor just like Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn did in 2006. He is one of at least six people who have filed to run for governor as an independent this year.
To get on the November ballot, he'll need to collect more than 45,000 signatures from registered Texas voters after the primary. None of the signatures can be from people who cast ballots in either the Republican or Democratic primary.
Cavenaugh cited his work running three churches over 18 years as his qualification for the job. He said that he thinks his chances in November are good.
"Texas is red conservative not red Republican," he said. "Right now, the two parties have destroyed themselves."
He criticized Gov. Rick Perry as a "globalist" who too often appears to "cry states' rights" while depending on the federal government to solve the state's problems.
"He’s going around and grandstanding on states' rights issues when we’re not economically able to stand on our own two feet without the federal government helping us," Cavanaugh said.
I met Cavanaugh while he was manning a table at a rally in Cleburne put on by the Burleson Tea Party. Many of the people there were strong supporters of Debra Medina.
I asked him why the people attending the rally should back him over Medina.
“I’m not out to destroy the property tax," Cavanaugh said. "I want to get the property tax under control because we need to fund our school system. There’s a lot of libertarian principles that I, as a Reagan conservative...would not be able to implement."
Why run as an independent instead of as a Republican?
"The Republican Party is a globalist meat grinder that will produce another globalist so why get involved," he said.
-Aman Batheja
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