More today from Austin, where the Texas Democratic Party has filed suit in an attempt to discover who paid for a $532,000 petition drive to get a Green Party candidate in the governor’s race.

But really, deductive reasoning already told us who did it, right? The Green Party is sometimes said to be left of the Democrats’ liberal wing. A Green gubernatorial candidate would not pull votes from faux tea-bagger incumbent GOP Gov. Rick Perry. Those votes would be siphoned straight from Democratic challenger and former Houston Mayor Bill White.

In a court hearing last month, former UT student Garrett Mize said lobbyist Mike Toomey, Perry’s close ally and former chief of staff, personally paid him to try to gather signatures for the Greens. Stuart Moss, who worked at the time for former Perry speech writer Eric Bearse, put Toomey and Mize in touch, Mize said.

An e-mail that Democrats obtained through their lawsuit showed that Republican operative Anthony Holm was in contact with Green Party officials as they tried to gather signatures this year. Holm’s company, the Patriot Group, received more than $90,000 from Perry’s campaign last year for technology consulting, although Holm said he was not involved with the firm’s work for Perry.

The gun is smoking, and it’ll be very interesting to trace that $532,000.

But think about it. Could Perry pals Mikey Toomey, Stuart Moss and Anthony Holm pull off something so Rovian without the governor’s knowledge?

The question isn’t whether Rick Perry’s fingerprints are all over this fiasco, but rather why Rick Perry is so fearful of the outcome of the Democratic process.