He eventually bought out his partners, and now operates the landmark bar along with a court-reporting company, a clothing store at the leather bar and a land development and related property management firm. But if elected, he quickly added, "I don't plan to wear leather at the Capitol."īy 2011, he was a part owner of a Dallas leather bar, The Eagle. Just like other contests, it had a formal-wear competition, an interview, a bathing suit contest - one piece," he said, explaining that he likes to wear leather. He said he toured internationally for the next year to raise money for charity. Leather contest in 2009 - the equivalent of winning the Miss America contest in the gay community, he said. He also gained cred in the Dallas gay community, winning the title of International Mr. The guy who, as a kid aspired to be a postal letter carrier, worked at a Dallas flooring company and sold cell phones for a time, eventually managing the store. "I had been to Texas before, to Dallas, and I loved it, so I got a new car, and me and my two (dachshund) dogs came to Dallas," he said. When Hurricane Katrina inundated the city in August 2005, Payne said he lost his house, his car and his job. He ended up in an orphanage in Ruston, La., and grew up there until he went into a foster home at age 15.Īfter graduating with a degree in business from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Payne moved to Lake Charles, where he operated a jewelry store, and then to New Orleans, where he eventually became a mediator for the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It's time our politics in Texas get with the program."īorn in Maine, the son of a glass installer who soon left his mother for another woman, Payne moved to Louisiana with his father after his mother committed suicide when he was 3. "Fred Flintstone and other Republicans may still be living in the Stone Age, but the rest of Texas is in the 21st century when being gay is a who-cares topic for anyone under 40," he said.
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Thom Hamlin, a Dallas resident and patron of Payne's leather bar, The Eagle, who attended Saturday's rally, said Payne's sexual orientation shouldn't be an issue, even though it will be. The bathroom law and the sanctuary-city law are two at the top of my list right now." "I'm almost ashamed to say I've voted for Republicans, but then they went off and got crazy. "With all the disgusting things in Washington and Austin, I am increasingly thinking both parties are the problem," she said. "He has some good ideas, even though he's a Democrat," said Shareen Natali, 43, a Dallas business owner and mother of four who identified herself as a "recovering Republican." Payne's formal announcement of his campaign, in the Landmark Ballroom at the convention-packed Hyatt Regency Hotel, proved a curiosity for passing out-of-town football fans at the hotel and for Texans alike. "But a lot of Texans are feeling like they've been left behind with the divisive politics in Texas now. "We know it's an uphill battle … in a deeply red state," Payne said.
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Party officials have said they intend to select another standard-bearer, to be announced later, perhaps before the filing period opens in early November. "I am tired of politics as usual in Texas," said Payne, 49, making his first run for public office and facing Abbott's whopping $41 million in a race where he pledged to invest $2.5 million of his own money, without much of any likely party support.
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Greg Abbott are a long shot at best, in a state where Democrats have not won a statewide race in two decades - and where conservatives still rail against gay men like Payne.īut in a year when the Republican party if engaged in a civil war between the tea-party conservatives in control and moderates who think they have gone way too far right for most Texans, Payne and his supporters insist a November surprise is possible. And he sees a lot of disenchanted, disenfranchised Texans who might be attracted to an outsider promising big change.Įven so, Payne's chances of an upset against popular Republican incumbent Gov. He also sees the potential to rally the sizable LGBT community in Texas to mobilize like never before in the wake of continued efforts to pass a bathroom bill. He sees a lot of anti-Donald Trump backlash. He sees a lot of anti-incumbent sentiment among Texans fed up with what they see as dysfunction in Austin. He's the first Democrat to officially announce for a spring primary expected to include at least three candidates. And what Payne sees before him is the potential for a Democratic outsider to finally begin turning the tide against Republicans in Texas politics.