Uploading

If her capers as comptroller don't catch her, Carole Rylander is ready to ride the Internet to greater political fame

A A A Comments By Stuart Eskenazi Thursday, Jan 6 2000

...continued from page 5

"I don't want us to be held hostage by Iran or Iraq or any Middle East ayatollah ever again," Rylander said.

The Texas comptroller is involved in a lot of things. National defense policy is not one of them. Ambitious though she might be, one thing is certain: Rylander isn't running for president. But her governor is. And if Bush wins, that creates a scramble in Texas politics in 2002. Rylander could run for governor, but more conventional wisdom has her targeting the lieutenant governor's seat if incumbent Rick Perry, who would be elevated to governor in 2001 if Bush becomes president, runs to retain the chief executive post.

John Anderson

Rylander aide Sanders defends his boss's duplication in developing on-line services.

More About

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Weekly Newsletter: Our weekly feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more - minus the newsprint and sent directly to your inbox.

"It is premature and stupid in this current flux that we're in here in Texas politics to speculate," says Sanders, Rylander's press aide. It's even more stupid, however, to think that a politician like Rylander isn't already obsessing about it.

Perhaps Rylander is auditioning for the U.S. Senate. She already tried to get to Congress once, losing in a 1986 election to represent Travis County in the U.S. House. To make that race, she switched parties and ran as a Republican. Last year U.S. Senator Phil Gramm took the extraordinary step of chairing Rylander's comptroller campaign. Wendy Gramm, the senator's wife, is one of the three people chairing Rylander's e-Texas. It's conceivable that Phil Gramm might not run for re-election in 2002 and is grooming Rylander as his successor.

Rylander, meanwhile, grooms e-Texas as a means to forge new political alliances and sidle up to those willing to contribute to her cause -- not necessarily her cause of "smaller, smarter government," as she likes to call it, but rather the cause of satisfying her own political ambition.