Off to the Races With Team Lampson
More from Kuff - Nick Lampson files for CD22 at noon today, making his familial ties to Fort Bend a bit more clearly known:
Nick Lampson, whose public service career spans the range from local government to the nation's capitol, will make his campaign for the U.S. Congress official on Wednesday by filing the required papers from his family's longtime headquarters in Stafford.Lampson will be available to the media at 12:00 p.m. noon on Jebbia Lane, a street named after his mother's family, who helped settle the area as okra and cotton farmers.
One bit of news that did manage to catch my eye in the latest Washington Post article:
Lampson, a moderate Democrat and one-time public school teacher from Beaumont, plans to formally file papers as a candidate today and then to move into DeLay's suburban Houston district. He said he will spend $4 million or more to try to defeat the majority leader, using ethics as a major issue.
FOUR MILLION??? I don't doubt that there'll be money to burn with no Presidential race to draw some heat away from Tom DeLay. But that's still a lot of money for someone who isn't independently wealthy to contemplate spending. The key for clarity here is knowing whether that's $4 mill of campaign cash he's counting or $4 mill of a combination of campaign cash and independent group spending (MoveOn, et al). I can see the latter happening far more easily than the former. But if the former is correct and the outside groups are adding to it, then we're talking about a lot of resources piling into a Congressional race, no matter how important it's viewed outside of the 22nd. Just a hunch, but that also makes it easier for the other side to claim their just being targetted by outsiders and tying in Lampson's move to the district as just another example of that.
I think of all the options for our side that are out there, Nick Lampson is the best one to run for the seat, but here's a lesson to take from the now defunct Morrison campaign: keep this race as close to the 22nd district as possible. Ethics are certainly fair game, as is the outright avarice that DeLay exudes. To the extent that it's you versus DeLay in October & November, you've done something right and should have a shot at winning. But to the extent that it becomes George Soros vs Tom DeLay ... or the readers of Britain's Guardian vs Tom DeLay ... well, I think we know how that's going to end up.
Oh, and as for the efforts of some GOP types to keep this a family matter and deal with it in the primary, good luck. It won't end up in anything other than Tom DeLay having the nomination, but good luck. Mike Fjetland, for all his plusses and minusses, has tried that before. If there's another possible candidate in the area that doesn't owe his political fortune to Tom DeLay, then I've got to think we're talking about someone WAY down the totem pole and, hence, no shot at winning. But still, if Fjetland runs again and gives a ready voice to the 20% or so within the GOP who genuinely realize the error of their party's ways in Tom DeLay, then by all means, give them that voice. It can't hurt ... or, at least, it can't hurt us.
Let us not forget that the "Republican elders" are looking for a DeLay opponent as well. Whether Fjetland gets the nod or not remains to be seen, but if he does, it would likely be with considerably more support than he had before. Such a fight would probably weaken DeLay further even if he is not beaten.
But unless DeLay is slapped hard by the House Ethics Committee or in a courtroom, I have serious difficulty imagining that ethics alone will drive him from office. Without that kind of standing, ethics has never been an election driver.
I really hope that Delay stays in for the long run. Lampson should be a very formidable candidate, since he has so many former constituents in Democratic Galveston, etc. Democrats can win this one!
I have to agree with Greg's assessment. I don't think there are enough Democrats in CD-22 to raise $4 million, so it might come down to having outside groups running ads to oust DeLay. If its some group called Concerned Citizens of Sugarland working out of a strip mall running ads against Tom DeLay, that's one thing. If the ads have "Paid for by MoveOnPAC" at the bottom of the screen, then it falls right into the trap Greg mentioned.
If Lampson doesn't say anything like "I want to raise taxes" and he can get enough moderate Republicans to vote for him instead of DeLay, then he's got a shot. It'll be close and I don't think ethics is going to do the trick.
I would talk about how DeLay is close to Big Business while positioning myself close to small business. Talk about MTBE and tax cuts for small business owners. You might eke out a win that way.