Morrison Out

Bummer:

Dear Friends and Supporters,

It is with great sadness that I must withdraw my name from the race for District 22. As you all know I devoted 2 years of my life to win and placed my law practice on hold. With the prospects of having to spend another 2 years winning a primary and then challenging DeLay, my family?s financial situation is not the rosiest. My wife is expecting our 5th child in August and I feel that I must devote my time to getting my financial house in order. I think the biggest issue this county faces is our national debt and for me and mine to be facing debt that could quickly become unmanageable is irresponsible and unwise.

My mother and children's grandmother has also been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. She has vowed to me that she will fight it every step of the way and I have committed to help her with that fight. I ask for your prayers for her and my father.

I am not giving up my fight. I will continue to stay active and work hard for democrats. I ask that you do the same. Tom DeLay is bad for democracy and bad for America. If I can be so bold, I demand that each one of you will commit to work as hard for Congressman Lampson or Councilman Quan as you did for me. Democracy will suffer if you slack off even one bit.

Please do more in your community than just Democratic politics. Become active in Rotary, the local Chamber of Commerce, or your church, mosque or synagogue. Volunteer and began to carry the load in these organizations. Become indispensable to them. And when the conversations turn to politics, let them know that you are a Democrat. Demonstrate by your service that the Democratic Party cares. Through our service we can win back what we have lost and make this great county better.

Finally, I want to thank each one you who has contributed their time, talent and treasure. This campaign was a campaign of service to the people of District 22 and each of you deserve all of the credit. I would not have been the candidate I was without your support.

Fight on!
Richard Morrison

The conspiracy theorists will naturally take the recent interest on the part of other candidates as a sign that the DCCC has elbowed out Morrison, but knowing the time commitment he had put into the race last time around and was fully intent on putting into the race this go-round, it's rather plain that the time would be better spent on something far more important than politics.

Richard Morrison deserves high praise for setting a clear example of taking a competitive race to an otherwise foregone conclusion of an outcome and making something very positive out of it. No longer is the assumption that Tom DeLay is a safely ensconsed incumbent taken at face value (unless, of course, you're a reporter for the Houston Chronicle). The most corrupt politician in America was held to 55% in the last election, running well below the President in every part of the district. We saw the marginal benefits of forcing Tom DeLay to spend money on his own race rather than the races of other endangered Republicans. And we wouldn't have seen an ounce of that had it not been for Richard Morrison expending the energy to push the issue as widely as he did.

The last time I spoke with Richard, he was busy recruiting candidates to see to it that other races got the benefit of a contest just as the 22nd Congressional District did earlier. If his mom's cancer is half the challenge that any political opponent is, I have no doubt that Team Morrison will make short shrift of it. Best of luck to the entire Morrison family.