GOP Looking for Revenge in Texas

[babylonsister]

GOP Looking for Revenge in Texas
By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff


In one of the earliest deadlines in the country, the period to qualify for Texas’ March 4 primary election ended on Wednesday, and it’s clear that Republicans will fight hard to reclaim the two Texas districts they lost in 2006.

The 22nd is a Houston-area district that is represented by Nick Lampson , and the 23rd District is a San Antonio-centered district that is held by Ciro D. Rodriguez . Those are the districts the Democrats wrested from Republican control in 2006 en route to winning a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Few if any Democratic victories in 2006 were more embarrassing to Republicans than Lampson’s win in Texas’ 22nd, a Republican-leaning area that had been represented by Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader who resigned in June 2006 after becoming politically weakened by ethics controversies.

The strong Republican interest in reclaiming the 22nd is demonstrated by the ten Republicans who qualified to run in the primary election. The candidate roster includes former Rep. Shelley Sekula Gibbs, who was elected in a November 2006 special election that was scheduled after DeLay resigned in June. Sekula Gibbs served for just two months, though; she had to wage an ultimately unsuccessful write-in campaign for the full two-year term because DeLay resigned after the 2006 Republican primary election and left the GOP ballot slot vacant. Lampson won by 10 percentage points.

The rematch-minded Sekula Gibbs will be vigorously challenged in a March GOP primary that includes Pete Olson, a former chief of staff to Republican Sen. John Cornyn ; Jim Squier, a retired judge; state Rep. Robert Talton; Dean Hrbacek, the former mayor of Sugar Land, a Houston suburb; Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer; John Manlove, the former mayor of Pasadena; Ryan Rowley, an information technology worker; Kevyn Bazzy, an intelligence analyst; and Brian Klock, a former Navy officer.

Lampson, who is unopposed in the Democratic primary, had a more centrist voting record in 2007 than he did during his first House tenure, when he represented a district in and around Beaumont and Galveston that was more friendly to Democrats than his current district, which gave Bush 64 percent of the vote in 2004.

In the 23rd, a Hispanic-majority district that also takes in much of Texas’ border with Mexico, Rodriguez is unopposed in the Democratic primary and will face the winner of a Republican primary in which the candidates are Francisco “Quico” Canseco, a wealthy lawyer, and Lyle Larson, a commissioner in the county that includes San Antonio.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002651527

[tbyg52]

1. From what I've seen, I wouldn't call Lampson "centrist"....

Based on this quote:

"Lampson, who is unopposed in the Democratic primary, had a more centrist voting record in 2007 than he did during his first House tenure, when he represented a district in and around Beaumont and Galveston that was more friendly to Democrats than his current district, which gave Bush 64 percent of the vote in 2004."

maybe "pragmatist".....? (To put it politely)