by Sandy » Sat Apr 23, 2005 1:21 pm
Well, they might think about working fast. Delay is probably not going to survive for the duration of this term, and even if he does manage to make it to the mid-terms, he'll be voted out. I live in his district. The Republicans in this area depend heavily on the centrists and independent voters and they want to keep this seat. Tom's vote totals have dropped from almost 70 percent to just barely 50 percent the last time around, and two local newspapers--the Herald-Coaster from Richmond-Rosenberg, which is the only daily published in the district, and a weekly called the Fort Bend Star, have both published polls which show that his former Democratic opponent Richard Morrison would win if the election were held tomorrow. The editor of the Star is a feisty lady named Bev Carter, and she is a staunch, leading Republican in this area. It may well be that she would run against Tom if he makes it to the election. Another candidate that has been mentioned is David Wallace, who is the extrememly popular mayor of Sugar Land, a Houston suburb that is the largest city in the district and has been the base of Delay's support. Wallace is a centrist Republican, a Catholic, and has a trememdous amount of appeal to the Republicans in this district who tend to be at the top of the upper middle class and largely unchurched. Among the 15 percent of the population in the area that is "churched," the vast majority of those are Catholic.
Tom's been doing some side-jobs the past couple of weeks, with speaking engagements at the NRA convention and some other gray and bald head gathering on Friday. Sizeable protest gatherings now appear wherever he does.