Have you shared your $.02-cents with the Gov.?

Courtesy today’s San Antonio Express-News and the Lone Star Times blog:

Some longtime Texas Republicans are expressing displeasure with Gov. Rick Perry by literally giving him their 2 cents’ worth in campaign contributions.

More than a dozen have opened their checkbooks to make contributions of less than a nickel and in some cases, only a penny.

They want their small donations to make a big statement.

"The whole country is waking up. I really think there’s going to be a revolution because people are sick and tired," Mary Bean of Rosenberg said. "People are sick and tired of all this bickering and not getting a damn thing done."

Perry did push a school funding reform bill through the Legislature last month that kept the Texas Supreme Court from closing public schools after June 1. But some of Perry’s fellow Republicans are miffed he supported a new business tax to make it happen.

"I was really mad that he started this new business tax," Bean said after sending a contribution check for 1 cent.

A lifelong Republican, Bean said she’ll vote for maverick independent Kinky Friedman.

Here’s the funny part.

Perry’s latest campaign contribution report filed this week listed 15 Houston-area donors who gave 5 cents or less. Some said they got the idea from radio talk show host Edd Hendee, who is part of KSEV’s lineup. The station owner is Dan Patrick, who also has fired up listeners against the governor’s school and tax reform plan. Patrick won the GOP nomination this spring for a Houston-area state Senate seat.

Perry’s campaign put the best possible spin on the unusual political contributions.

"The governor appreciates every contribution — large and small," Perry spokesman Robert Black said, declining further comment.

The minuscule protest contributions will end up costing the Perry campaign as those checks have automatically landed the contributors on a mailing list for campaign literature they’re now receiving.

So the grassroots gets to express their frustration, and the Perry campaign is grateful to lose money?

Sounds like a win-win situation.

Texans for Rick Perry
PMB 217, P.O. Box 2013
Austin, TX 78768