Speaking as a GOP precinct chair in CD22, all I can say is that we are just going to have to work harder than usual to win.

The Texas Republican Party establishment has rallied around a single candidate, Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, in their unusual write-in campaign to salvage the 22nd Congressional District seat vacated in June by Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader.

But the extreme rarity of successful write-in campaigns for Congress and the presence of a solid Democratic nominee on the ballot in former Rep. Nick Lampson has prompted CQPolitics.com to change its rating on the 22nd District race to Leans Democratic from No Clear Favorite.

The GOP faces a world of trouble in this race because of a serious miscalculation on the part of DeLay and his party colleagues.

There is a strong commitment on the part of local Republicans to hold this seat, and with enough work we will be able to do it. At the same time, i ad mit that we have no easy task before us, despite having a good candidate for office who can be contrasted with DeLay as having no hint of scandal associated with her andnot being the candidate of the Fort Bend power structure that produced him. At the same time, she contrasts with Lampson by bing ideologically in tune witht he district and having lived here for the last two decades -- while Lampson carpetbagged into the district within the last year after most of his life near the Louisiana border in Beaumont.

Still, I understand the rating change -- write-in campaigns are an uphill battle.

Posted by: Greg at 10:06 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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