Democrats write off 2010 Texas Governor's race?

R.G. Ratcliff:

The rapidly growing field of candidates for a U.S. Senate special election that may never occur has left the Texas Democratic Party with no clear candidate for governor in 2010.

For the past year, the presumption has been that Houston Mayor Bill White was the leading contender for the Democratic nomination to take on either Gov. Rick Perry or U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, depending on who emerged victorious from the Republican gubernatorial primary.

But the political calculus changed last week when White announced he will seek Hutchison’s Senate seat instead.

Ask Harris County Democratic Chairman Jerry Birnberg who will run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination now, and he’ll reply: “I’ll get back to you on that one. That’s a real good question.”

Bexar County Democratic Chair Carla Vela said: “For the last year, I thought for sure that Bill White was the one ..... I haven’t heard anybody else mention the governorship, and I wish they would. We can’t just hand it over to Kay or Perry again.’’

The only other often-mentioned Democrat for governor, former Comptroller John Sharp, also announced earlier this month that he will run for Senate.

Another potential Democratic candidate for the Senate seat, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, said the vacuum in the governor’s race is caused by the fact Democrats don’t know whether the Republican nominee will be Perry or Hutchison.

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The only Democratic names floated so far for governor are retiring Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle and state Sen. Kirk Watson of Austin. Singer Kinky Friedman, who ran as an independent in 2006, has said he may run as a Democrat in 2010. Perry won re-election in 2006 with just 39 percent of the vote, and he angered social conservatives in his party the next year with an ill-fated executive order requiring teenage girls to be vaccinated against HPV, a sexually transmitted disease.

Hutchison has never received less than 60 percent of the vote in any of her four runs for the Senate. Still, she makes social conservatives uneasy because of her moderate position on abortion.

For Perry’s part, he has been trying to capitalize on some grassroots anger over Hutchison voting for the Wall Street bailout bill.

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It shows how weak the Democrat bench is that there is no credible candidate announced for the race. White was the only potential candidate and I think Chuck Schumer let him know that there would be money available for a Senate race, but not the Governor's race. If Ronnie Earle is the candidate, the Democrats will be lucky to carry any area outside of Travis County. A Hutchison Earle battle would be very interesting, mainly for the spread on the over-under of her margin of victory.