Monday, April 07, 2008

Texas CD 22: It’s Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber

It’s down to the wire in the Fighting 22nd. Tomorrow, April 8th, is primary runoff day in Texas and Republicans of all stripes will be falling all over each other in CD 22 to get to those polls and cast their votes for their candidate of preference: Shelley Sekula Gibbs or Pete Olson.. The first step to reclaim the congressional seat that Tom DeLay, their former hero and current martyr, lost when Nick Lampson kicked him all the way to Virginia in 2006.

My mail box was stuffed with mailers. My phone voicemail was filled with robocalls.

And, if you haven’t guessed it yet, I am a Democrat.

Pretty dumb, don’t you think, to send stuff to someone who has early voted in the Democratic primary? But that’s what we are dealing with: Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber.

Appropriate names because from where I sit I cannot tell the difference between these two. Can you? Well, OK, one is wackier than the other, but if one has wackiness, the other has some odious ties. Yes, Pete Olson, for all his seriousness, for all his military service, has such extreme entanglements with what remains of Tom DeLay’s Washington machine.

This, by the way, actually attracts people to Pete Olson. There are still voters here in CD 22 who think “Ht Tub” Tom got a bad deal and the only reason he isn’t in jail right now is that they don’t have a case against him.

Tom DeLay is a martyr to these people.

So if Pete Olson has a base, it is these people. People, by the way, that Shelley would like to have as well, because she, after all, is the true conservative of the two.

So here in the Fighting 22nd, we have a real street brawl going, being fought by two powerhouses: as self-funding wacky dermatologist and a DC-connected lawyer.

My. What a choice Dark Side voters have.

Guess what, though? The vote tomorrow doesn’t really matter. CD 22 voters are done with the Greedy Old People. Like everywhere else, change is in the air. What happens tomorrow will have a lot to do with which of the two, Tweedledumb or Tweedledumber, will have to spend more Republican money this year, only to lose in November.

And that’s about it.

It might be nice to end it here with a passage from Lewis Carroll’s story, because it seems so appropriate. Appropriate at so many levels.

"Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle!
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel!
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.'

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