So, who will be Tom DeLay's hand chosen by-atch?

[johncoby2]

Shelley Sekula Rodriguez Gibbs. A Houston City council woman who is term limited.

State Senator Michael "Missing in Action" Jackson. A state senator who will be challenged by his own party in 2008 for his senate seat.

Judge Eckels. A County Commissioner in Harris County. Don't know where he lives.

Michael Wallace. Mayor of Sugarland.

I will keep my snide comments to myself for a while, except for Missing in Action Jackson. He will be challenged in 2008 not only by his own party, but by the Democrats also. He is truly missing in action. I can't remember a thing he has done except for filing the insurance welfare bill of 2003.

[Texaroo]

1. It'll be Mike Wallace.

True to form, it meets the GOP standard of recognizable name and associated novelty candidate status.

Shelley Gibbs is too moderate for the hardcore District 22 GOP. Judge Eckels has too sweet a deal to leave that position (he could've run for ANY seat). Michael Jackson has internal party baggage (apparently) that will keep the GOP from nominating him.

[merci_me]

2. I think you made the right call on all of them.............

besides the over-riding fact that Wallace is Bob Perry's homegrown puppet, he's the one they'll opt for.

[muse]

3. you left someone out

According to Bob Dunn in Fort Bend Now (http://www.fortbendnow.com/opinion/996/wallace-thode-endorsements-fuel-fire-from-howell), Eckels has been setting up meetings with precinct chairs in Fort Bend, Harris, Brazoria and Galveston counties. Sekula-Gibbs has been trying to get email addresses chairs from precinct chairs in Fort Bend County.

Wallace and Charlie Howard want to run for sure. How could you leave out my warm, cuddly state rep? Here is his claim to fame:

House Bill 220, introduced in the Texas House of Representatives on December 14, 2004, by Representative Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Land), would, if enacted, amend the state's education code to require that textbooks approved by the state be free from factual errors, "including errors of commission or omission related to viewpoint discrimination or special interest advocacy on major issues, as determined by the State Board of Education," and satisfy general textbook content standards to be defined by the board.

Howard recently told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that HB 220 would enable the board to ensure that creationism was taught alongside evolution and to remove evolution segments from science textbooks. "Some of our books right now only teach evolution, if you're going to teach one, you ought to teach both," he said. "Evolution is a theory. ... It is a theory, it's not a fact. There is no fact for evolution, none. ... Why are we teaching a theory, when we have position -- creation -- that the majority of the people in this country believe?"


Isn't he just the cutest thing?

[PDittie]

4. David Wallace is on the right in this photo:

I'm voting for the man in the middle.

[PDittie]

5. Seriously, some Republican scuttlebutt

from little Chrissie Elam (I clicked on his link, so you don't have to):

I understand from several sources that the Harris County CD 22 GOP precinct chairs had an informal meeting of the minds Monday night, with Jared Woodfill present. These are the intial rumblings out of Harris...

1) The State Reps as in ANY and ALL US Rep races appear to be the current favorites (Charlie Howard and Robert Talton) in Harris, but there are 12, count them, 12 potentials who have their names in the hat.

2) That number is expected to thin out to 5-6 once DeLay's resignation comes in.

3) Shelley Sekula-Gibbs has to overcome appearing way too eager for this nomination (b/c of her term limits situation), and perception of a weak pro-life stance will hurt her chances

4) Any candidate from outside the district will face serious carpetbagging issues. That much has been made clear already in Harris with regard to Eckels and Bettencourt, and will most likely be surfacing in other counties as well.

5) SREC Committeewoman Kathy Haigler wants to be the Harris nominee very much as does SREC Committeewoman Terese Raia for Fort Bend County.

6) SL Mayor David Wallace is getting very poor odds in Harris and is not viewed as a serious contender for the post in that part of the world.

7) There appears to be a sense of urgency in Harris to settling upon a replacement candidate. Will we have a name by the State Convention in six weeks? Is that sense of urgency going to be felt in other counties?

What fun we're having. I'll pass along anything I hear from friends in Brazoria and Galveston as the gossip comes in.

Apparently they all have some baggage, since Christie focused on the negatives of each candidate -- "her weak pro-life stance". Heh.

Keep in mind that unless the Republicans congeal on a single name, there will potentially be four different nominees, one from each county (Harris, Ft. Bend, Barzoria, Galveston). Pigs are wrasslin' even as I type this.

[Texaroo]

6. Fort Bend is the wild card

They may get pissy if THEIR candidate isn't the one running against Nick. These guys are sooo incestuous and subject to in-fighting. I think the new part of the district will go for Lampson without a doubt (all of the hardcore DeLay people who had yard signs in my neighborhood have pulled them up).

I just see the GOP'rs staying home in droves if the wrong person gets chosen to run (mening the guy from a different county). They are already pretty petty - the only reason many of them supported Tom to begin with was because of seniority and pork procurement. The likely replacement will probably be a fiscal conservative who won't give the proper respect to pork that Tom did (i.e., NASA, the "corridor," etc).

I think these people may even realize what Tom's redistricting effort did to them. And he's leaving town....

[muse]

7. Fort Bend is trending down from 60% Republican to 56%

from the mouth of Nick Lampson.

at our last Lampson volunteer meeting about a week and a half ago

for what it is worth!

[PDittie]

8. Go read the Texas Monthly article

before they put it behind the sunscription firewall:

The county chairs of the district’s four counties, along with one precinct chair from each county, will choose the nominee. If this were an ordinary Republican primary, the front-runners would be David Wallace, the mayor of Sugar Land, and Robert Eckels, a former state legislator who is now county judge of Harris County. But only eight votes matter, so anything could happen. For example, there has already been some discussion of the three non-Houston counties ganging up on the big city.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/csc/486feature.php

[muse]

9. I read the whole thing first thing this morning

Got the link from Off the Kuff.

And copied and pasted it into a word doc so I could read it again.

And, sent it to Sally Smith, Lampson's field coordinator. :)

You KNOW I am very, very obsessed with DeLay!

I'm not loving how the writer characterized Lampson. I'm also not loving how he made it sound like TX is all the worse for DeLay being gone from Congress. Ridiculous.

[Rocket Surgeon]

10. Whoever it is, they will win...

Sorry to be pragmatic, but the district is too gerrymandered for a close campaign.

What I wonder is who has taken DeLay's place and title as the most powerful, Republican sterotype in the house?

[johncoby2]

11. Spoken like someone who doesn't live in the district.

with only 33 posts.....

[Rocket Surgeon]

17. You're right. I do not live in the district...

But I really do not have much faith in a group of voters who put Delay in office for over two decades. Maybe it's something in the Fort Bend County water.

[PDittie]

12. RS, that's neither pragmatic nor realistic

It's just defeatist. Why don't you just give up now?

"Fight 'em 'til Hell freezes over, and then fight 'em on the ice", ya know.

[johncoby2]

13. I agree. Run like a mouse.

Run away. Like a little mouse.

[Rocket Surgeon]

18. Not quite defeatist...

I put Lampson's odds at slightly better than RuPaul being elected mayor of Salt Lake City. Sugar Land voters are in some sort of suburban psychosis.

[PDittie]

19. This verifies

that you don't know enough about this race to make an intelligent statement about it.

[muse]

14. Huh?

Did you read my post? Because of DeLay's redistricting (and other factors), recent data shows the district is trending less Republican than ever before.

Also, no other congressional campaign has field work going on this early except for Lampson. Have you seen the amount of money Lampson has raised this campaign season? Cash on hand? Raised in the first quarter of 2006? Far and above any Democratic congressional candidate. His Republican opponent in TX-22? Uh, zero to date.

I've talked to real, live actual swing voters (at their door, face to face) and they are not happy with the status quo.

As November approaches, I guarantee we'll have volunteers from all over everywhere come down here and help us GOTV. If you want to run somewhere, run down here and help us out.

[johncoby2]

15. But the Republican controlled Congress has done so much for us!

Like......
Get us into a war
Record deficits
Record Debt
Corruption at every corner
$3.00/gallon gasoline
30% higher education costs
Higher insurance rates
Higher electricity rates


I mean, who WOULDN'T vote for a Republican?

[muse]

16. Lost our respect in the world

You left off that one.

That almost bothers me the most. We have almost gotten used to it after 5 1/2 years, but it's really been a sea change. Not good. Embarrassing to the extreme.