Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Delay resignation may signal the end of Democrat Lampson's chances to pick up CD 22 seat
Tom Delay's resignation removes a key part of Nick Lampson's strategy for winning the CD 22 seat. If the Democrats can't run against the "culture of corruption" , Lampson may be unable to get much traction in what is a Republican district.
Ironically, Tom Delay may have been Nick Lampson's last, best hope of returning to congress.
Conservative columnist Robert Novak, writing for the Evans / Novak Politcal Report, reports:
DeLay will now step down this summer, triggering a special election to replace
him. He will also change his residence to Virginia, making himself ineligible to run for re-election in the fall and leaving the process to the back-room politics of the state Republican Executive Committee to place a new name on the November ballot.Still, the committee is likely to choose whichever Republican finishes first in the special election. DeLay's hand-picked successor appears to be Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace (R), whom DeLay informed of his decision in advance and who notified the press he would be running for the seat.
Also running will be Tom Campbell (R), who took 30 percent against DeLay in the March 7 primary.
DeLay's decision probably takes this seat out of contention for the fall. Although DeLay's challenger, former Rep. Nick Lampson (D), still has a large amount of cash on hand, his strategy in this heavily Republican district was to run a highly negative campaign against DeLay regarding his scandals and the "culture of corruption" surrounding congressional Republicans. Now he will have to start from scratch.
