John Sharp Will Vote For Chris Bell

Ok. So, it finally came out.

We all knew that when former Texas Comptroller John Sharp was asked to head up fellow Aggie Rick Perry’s Texas Tax Reform Commission, there would be more questions about his party loyalty than there are about Andy Dick’s sexuality.

At least we can put the questions about the former to rest (because I know so many of you were suffering sleepless nights over this). Via uber consultant and Sharp confidante Kelly Fero, John Sharp has sent out a “signal:”

When former Comptroller John Sharp teamed up with his one-time arch rival, Republican Gov. Rick Perry, to lead the effort to develop a new school finance plan last year, some Austin insiders thought the Democrat might be ready to turn his back on his party.

Not so. Sharp, who lost to Perry in the 1998 race for lieutenant governor, has signaled his intention to vote for Bell. Longtime confidante Kelly Fero said Sharp has “never not voted as a Democrat.” And, Fero said, Sharp has been raising money for and offering advice to several Democratic candidates for the state House.

Why this “signal” had to run through the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s “The Insider” column is totally unknown to me. (Perhaps, it was because *everyone* knows bloggers all pick up on the political “gossip” columns?)

I do love the language of the “signal,” which, if nothing else, is very Feroesque, saying that Sharp has “never not voted for a Democrat.” If that holds true (and I personally have every expectation that it will), then I think we can safely assume Sharp will be voting a fully Democratic ticket.

So, to those of you Democrats who were waiting until you had this information to determine how to cast your vote (and you know who you are), early voting is still open. Ah…Republicans have the Christian Coalition Voter’s Guide, Democrats have John Sharp.

While I say that with some amount of tongue-in-cheek, there were three distinct camps of Democrats with different schools of thought on what Sharp would “do” this cycle. One thought he’d endorse Perry because of the TTRC business. Still another thought he’d endorse Strayhorn since he is a principal in Ryan and Company and they are showing One Tough Grandma all kinds of financial love. And, then there were the other twenty five or so Democrats (I kid, there were at least 100…ha, ha, ha) who knew this announcement would come sooner or later and that John Sharp would never be anything but a Democrat.

Which leads to Sharp’s reason for helping with the whole TTRC thing:

“Nobody wants to believe it, but he [Sharp] worked with Perry on the school finance plan because it was good for Texas, not to curry favor with the Republicans,” Fero said. “It was never about anybody’s party affiliation.”

I think that played a big part in it. But, just like nothing can keep a blogger from his/her computer, we all know that the simple truth is that John Sharp is probably just addicted to spreadsheets, percentages, and phrases like “value added tax,” and “alternative minimums tax,” and “gross receipts.”

The scary thing, though, is that John Sharp actually makes all those things sound interesting and understandable when he talks about them.

It’s ok, Mr. Sharp. Democrats still love you (some of them in the Lege even voted for your tax plan!).

And, because he’s actually a really, really nice guy, we here at Capitol Annex are quite sure he probably laughed as much while reading this post as we did while writing it…if he read it, that is.

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