Shelley Sekula-Gibbs won election to the US House of Representatives in yesterday's special election with around 62% of the vote. Unfortunately, this only makes her my Congresswoman until January, when Democrat Nick Lampson takes over for the full term, having won a race in which Shelley's name was not allowed on the ballot. The final outcome of that race was around 52%-42%, with Sekula-Gibbs' write-in campaign doing quite well in a race where only the Democrat and the Libertarian appeared on the ballot.

Some observations.

1) Shelley's victor came in a race in which Lampson didn't compete -- because he knew he could not win and did not wish to expose the weakness of his support in CD22. That is part of why the Democrats fought so desperately to keep any GOP candidate off the general election ballot. But if you can barely scrape by with half the vote when you are the only major party candidate on the ballot, how much of a mandate can you really claim? I'd suggest that the answer is NONE -- and that Lampson begins his term in office as a lame duck.

2) Why did Shelley Sekula-Gibbs lose the general election? Because of the difficulty associated with casting a write-in vote. As an election judge, I spoke with at least a dozen folks (mostly elderly) who thought they had to cast two different ballots to vote for the special election and the general election -- and unintentionally cast their ballot before seeking to move on to cast any votes in the general election. I've heard similar stories from other precincts in the area. Others thought they could vote for Sekula-Gibbs by casting a straight-ticket GOP vote. They couldn't -- and came back later wanting to know if they could "fix" their error. And I have heard horror stories from the early ballot board of folks who sent in their ballots not marked "just so" -- Lampson's folks fought tooth and nail to keep them out, despite the clear intent of the voter. I suspect the same thing is going on now with any write-in vote that did not spell the name exactly right -- and we do not know exactly how many that would be. In other words, it is likely that a majority of voters in CD22 intended to vote for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs in the general election, but failed to do so because of confusion with the process of doing so.

3) Shelley's victory in the special election makes her the odds-on favorite for the GOP nomination in 2008. I know that those of us who supported her during the nomination this spring very happy. I don't know if we have any local office-holders willing to give up a safe seat to challenge her for this position -- and David Wallace lacks credibility after his behavior back in August. I have no doubt that CD22 will be safely back in Republican hands two years from now -- and am pretty confident that Shelley Sekula-Gibbs will be returned to Washington for a full term at that time. After all -- being the face of hope for the party when all seems lost is what made ultimately made Ronald Reagan President of the United States.

By the way, let's attribute the loss of this at to the man who deserves the blame -- Tom DeLay. If, as is often claimed by the Democrats, DeLay knew he was not going to run in the general election as early as January, he should never have filed for office. His decision to drop out after getting an atta-boy for the GOP primary voters was selfish and led, I believe, to the Lampson victory and the larger GOP meltdown nationwide.

MORE ON THE CD22 RACE AT Texas Safety Forum.

Posted by: Greg at 10:32 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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