I Think John Healey is in for a Drubbing

I call it my Grand No Teaparty Poll. It is the way that I test the winds of change in the thinking of Republicans in Fort Bend County, Texas.

It has to do with signage.

You see, I live in a fairly conservative corner of Fort Bend County. Here it is about 70% Republican to 30% Democratic. And you get to know who are the Republican Party activists in the area because they are the first ones to put out campaign signs.

In 2006, when the Texas Democratic Party filed suit against the Republicans when they tried to replace Tom DeLay on the November ballot . . . and won . . . we had a write-in campaign for Shelley Sekula Gibbs. Republicans in the area got on board and posted those really ugly signs in their yards.

She lost the write-in campaign but won the special election because nobody ran against her. Treating local Republicans to 6 weeks of hilarious misbehavior of a paranoid gone ballistic.

So the next time around, Republicans got themselves a carpetbagger to run against Shelley in the 2008 primary. Again, out came the campaign signs in the neighborhood – same residences, same Republican activists – but this time the ugly Shelly signs were replaced by carpetbagger/teabagger Pete Olson signs.

(sorry, it was the only photo I could find of one).

And Pete Olson sent Shelley Sekula Gibbs back to her dermatology clinic.

So these residences have become for me something of a bellwether for the way the winds are blowing in the Republican Party.

Bringing me to the Republican primary and the challengers that Fort Bend DA John Healey has attracted.

Here and elsewhere we have noted the goings on in the county DA’s office, notably how Healey continued to tolerate the misdeeds and mishandlings of his immediate underling, Mike Elliott. Healey was becoming an embarrassment to Republicans. Fortune did not smile on the Democrats who failed to find one person who was willing to take the pay cut and run for District Attorney, but this does not deter Republicans, who have mastered the whole running for DA thing.

And so we saw that at the end of the January 4th filing deadline, John Healey, who had his big four by eight campaign signs peppered around the county before Christmas, attracted two challengers: Nina Schaeffer, an attorney, and Richard Raymond, another attorney.

And today, for the first time, I saw Healey’s opponents’ signs sprout up all over my neighborhood.

Like this one.

And this one.

Right at the moment it looks like it is about 4:1 in favor of Raymond but who knows how it will go between those two - it's early yet, right?

But in the whole neighborhood, not one “Re-Elect John Healey” sign is to be found - - - on someone’s front lawn, anyway.

I think John Healey is in for a big disappointment. Just as they did with Shelley, my bellwether GOPer neighbors have done likewise to Healey, this despite his first out of the chute effort at planting campaign signs wherever you look.

But I think to no good result. I think he’s going to lose.

Proving again the time honored saying:

“The first shall be last” (Jesus, 33)