*Texas Comptroller Carol Keeton Strayhorn -- Strayhorn, who is running as an independent, overcame a big hurdle earlier this month when she submitted more than 220,000 signatures to get on the ballot. Texas law makes it very difficult to qualify as an independent. In this case, candidates had to gather more than 45,540 signatures, with the trick being that none of them could come from people who voted in the Democratic or Republican primaries for governor. Strayhorn's total ensures that even if she has thousands of invalid signatures, as is likely, she'll still make the ballot.
More on Strayhorn -- and two other gubernatorial candidates -- after the jump.
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Still Strayhorn's chances are the same that they were before she submitted her signatures: remote. She got some bad news when fellow independent Kinky Friedman also appeared to gain ballot access last week. At least 35%-40% of the Texas electorate is made up of conservative Republicans who are probably backing incumbent Rick Perry no matter what. It's hard to see how any one of the other three major contenders, Strayhorn, Friedman and Democrat Chris Bell, could get a big enough chunk of the remainder to win. The apparent resolution of the school funding deadlock in the legislature will also help Perry.
* Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell -- When Lynn Swann effectively secured the Republican nomination against Rendell earlier this year, I figured that his best poll numbers would be his first ones. I expected a seasoned pro like Rendell to make quick work of someone without any public policy experience, let alone previous runs for elected office. To date, however, the tenor of the contest hasn't been much different than any early-season campaign, with lots of sniping back and forth, but no earth-shattering developments. Currently, the polls are wildly divergent, with some giving Rendell a big lead and others showing a dead heat. The legislature did the incumbent no favors by declining to pass a property tax cut he wanted to tout on the campaign trail.
That said, Rendell is still a favorite for two reasons. First, his fundraising has been far more prolific than Swann's, which is what you would expect from a former Democratic National Committee Chairman. Second, independent Russ Diamond may steal votes from Swann.
*Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell -- You would think that any candidate who won his party's primary would by definition have seen his chances of getting elected improve, but that's not the case with Blackwell. The battle for the G.O.P. nomination got so nasty that by the end it might not have been a prize worth winning; it's never a good sign when a campaign is described as a "raging mudstorm." Even before the primary, Republicans in the state had a serious problem that can be described in seven letters, "B-O-B T-A-F-T," so Blackwell has an uphill climb ahead of him. His only saving grace might be that he's very popular with conservatives nationally and shouldn't have trouble raising money.
