SUGAR LAND, Texas - Rep. Tom DeLay won the GOP nomination to the House on Tuesday, beating three challengers in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader.
That's right--It's another exciting episode of The Tom DeLay Comedy Hour! Continuing on with the story:
With 14 percent of precincts reporting, DeLay had 10,005 votes, or 64 percent. His closest challenger, environmental attorney Tom Campbell, had 4,049 votes, or 26 percent.
"I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today's vote shows they have placed their full faith in me," DeLay said in a statement. "Not only did they reject the politics of personal destruction, but they strongly rejected the candidates who used those Democrat tactics as their platform."
After voting in his hometown of Sugar Land, DeLay returned to Washington for a campaign fundraiser hosted by two lobbyists. He criticized his opponents for their "politics of personal destruction," saying such tactics "were rejected just like they will be in November."
The Democratic nominee in the fall will be Nick Lampson, a well-financed former congressman ousted from office in 2004 under the new congressional map engineered by DeLay. Lampson had no primary opponent Tuesday.
DeLay "gets headlines for all the wrong reasons," Lampson said Tuesday. "I'm looking forward to that headline on November 8th: 'No Further DeLay.'"Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, leaves his office on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 7, 2006 in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
I love how DeLay is trying to frame this as a Democratic Party's "politics of personal destruction." Excuse me Mr. DeLay, you were caught laundering money from national Republican Party political campaign contributions to the Texas State Republican Party and Republican candidates in state races--a BIG NO-NO as according to the Texas election laws. And you got caught. There's no politics of personal destruction here--just corruption on your part.
Now the Republicans did have a chance to dump DeLay here, and avoid the Democratic Party attacks that the Republicans practice the politics of corruption by choosing a Republican candidate that is not tainted by scandal. But I guess the Republicans in Texas want to stand by their man. What does this mean? It means that the DeLay money laundering trial has just become an election issue--perhaps even on a national scale. Any information that comes out will be used by both political parties--the Democrats in tainting DeLay as being corrupt, and the Republicans by trying to defend DeLay with their claims of "Democratic politics of personal destruction." The best that the Republicans can hope for is that the American public will be scandal fatigued by November.
The trouble with this thinking is that there are a lot of scandals going through Washington these days--DeLay, Abramoff, Katrina, Iraq intelligence, Scooter Libby, Valerie Plame, Portgate. And they are all connecting back towards the Republican Party--towards Congress and the Bush White House. Look at how the current poll results have been dropping for the Republicans. The longer this stuff stays on the front of the news media, the worst it is going to get for the Republicans. For these continued revelations of scandal and corruption will reinforce the idea that the Republican Party is out of touch with America, that they are selling out to the corporate interest or big lobbyists. That is not a good message to defend against as November creeps up. And remember, the Scooter Libby trial hasn't started yet, nor have any indictments of Republican congressmen been handed down as a result of the Abramoff investigation. The Abramoff investigation could really blow up in the Republican faces if further indictments are handed down by late September or October. So these are all potential land mines, and they all can destroy Tom DeLay's political comeback.
We'll just have to see what happens soon.
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