Common Sense

As I mentioned before, the 5th Circuit ruled against the Texas Republican Party yesterday, saying Tom DeLay must remain on the November ballot.

The indomitable Tina Benkiser (who totally freaks me out) is appealing to the Supreme Court. I’m not sure why. Even DeLay admitted on the witness stand that he could not be sure he would not be a resident of Texas on Election Day. It’s hard to say he won’t be if he can’t say he won’t be. And that’s when eligibility for election would be determined. I guess you could make the determination when the deadline to register for voting had passed, but that’s only 30 days.

The central question on the legal front is if a candidate for Congress should be able to decide after the whole primary period to just move away and let the party pick a new candidate with a better chance of being elected. If you can do it in May, why not in September when you have a better idea of the voters’ intent? Why even have primaries if candidates can be switched out anytime?

My central question is why would anyone in District 22 vote for DeLay now? Really, any Republicans feel free to comment or email with an answer. The guy left the state, has argued vociferously that he doesn’t want to represent you, but is now going to have to. Even if he’s elected, he’s probably going to resign and you’ll have to have a special election and vote again. I certainly wouldn’t vote for someone who doesn’t want to represent me.

My other big question (I question a lot) is what happened to his campaign money? I haven’t seen his finance reports since he resigned from Congress, but I know he had to want to use that money for his legal defense fund. Did he already move the money? If he did, then he has 3 months to try and outraise Lampson to put up a decent fight. Would the Republicans really send that much money to the district in an effort to keep it? I would put the odds in Lampson’s favor right now, so just cost-benefit wise, it’s probably not even worth it.

Anyone with any knowledge of the DeLay campaign situation, please let me know. Identities will be kept secret.