I'm not surprised by the ruling of the 5th Circuit in the DeLay case. The ruling, which I believe is wrong, was not implausibly so. It was therefore a long shot that the appellate court would overturn the trial court's ruling. This means that we in CD22 are stuck with Tom DeLay as the GOP nominee -- sort of.

A federal appeals court panel on Thursday refused to let Texas Republicans replace Tom DeLay's name on the November congressional ballot.

The finding upheld a July ruling by a federal judge that the ballot must list DeLay, who won a March primary before resigning from Congress on June 9. He now lives in Virginia but is awaiting trial in Texas state court on money laundering and conspiracy charges alleging that illegal corporate cash helped pay for legislative campaigns in 2002.

"This was a victory for fair and ethical elections protecting the integrity of the democratic process. Both parties have nominees for the general election and it's time to move forward," said Cris Feldman, a lawyer for the Texas Democratic Party.

The problem, of course, is that Texas law requires that a candidate be ineligible to be replaced -- and the Constitution only requires eligibility on the day of election. Frankly, I don't thingk the GOP lawyers handled this case well at all. And the real culprit in all f this is DeLay himself, who decided to bail out at the first sign of trouble.

Frankly, I don't see a ruling by the Supreme Court happening in a sufficiently timely fashion as to make a difference, so I hope the party just drops that Hail Mary tactic.

Where does that leave us as a party?

1) DeLay can become an active candidate again. To be honest, I think this district is Republican enough that he could win. But I only want to see that happen if he is serious about serving out the entire term. A post election refusal to serve will simply piss-off too many people to guarantee that the seat will stay out of Democrat hands.

2) DeLay could withdraw from the race, leaving the GOP without a candidate. Local conservative forces could unite behind one write-in candidate. Unfortunately, the method for doing write-in votes on teh eSlate machines is cumbersome and would discorage many voters from doing so. I therefore find this an unsatisfactory option.

3) DeLay could withdraw and the GOP could throw its support to Bob Smither, the Libertarian in the race. While certainly not a Republican, he is preferrable to Nick Lampson.

4) DeLay could withdraw and the GOP could concede the race. This would have teh effect of putting Lampson in office for the foreseeable future, given the difficulty of defeating an incumbent.

I Tom Delay stays in the race, I will back him -- not with enthusiasm, but I will back him. After all, I didn't vote for him in the 2002 or 2004 primary, and voted Libertarian for Congress in both of those elections. Those votes were protests against a Congressman that I had (and have) some serious questions about. But the reality is that I believe that holding this seat for the GOP is of vital importance for the United States. I can sum up the reason for this in two words -- Speaker Pelosi. It is why I endorsed Tom DeLay for renomination this past spring, and why I had done so for the general election. Democrat control of either house of Congress would not be good for America.

The party needs to quickly figure out what is going on, and then act accordingly. The leadership has already f*cked this one up enough, and we need every moment we can get to make sure that we hold this seat in trust for future generations of Americans -- even if that means that Delay's butt sits in it for one more term.

But make no mistake. There will be serious primary challenges if he tries to run in 2008, and he will not be the nominee of the GOP in 2008.

Posted by: Greg at 04:01 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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