DeLay's Dilemma

by emptywheel

Let's say you're Tom DeLay. It's February 2006, and your legal defense fund is beginning to run dry.Well, not just run dry. It's already running a deficit. You're already polling behind your Democratic opponent in the polls, and you haven't even won the primary yet. Thing is, you consider the three people running against you disloyal. Fuck 'em. Who are they to accuse the Hammer of corruption? So you stay in the race just to prevent one of them from benefiting from the misfortune of Tom DeLay. No problem. You can whup their asses in the primary and just deal with getting a candidate later.

Fast forward to Summer 2006. At this point, you've got $1.4 million in your campaign fund, with $1 million in unpaid legal bills. With lots more legal bills to come. And your Democratic opponent has $2 million in his campaign chest. You know you're not going to win your seat. In fact, all your colleagues want you out, ASAP, because you're making them look like crooks. And frankly, with the Legal Defense Fund donations slowing down, it's beginning to look like you'll need to use all of your campaign funds to pay the lawyers. And shit, they haven't even gotten Buckham yet. There's a while 'nother legal case on the Abramoff charges, that's coming down the pike.

So you just ask the head of the TX GOP party to declare you ineligible. Tell them I'm from VA, now. Those Democrats won't do anything about it. They're a bunch of pansies. Right?

Thing is, now that they're challenging you in the courts (goddamnit, where'd they get this mettle all of a sudden?), you've got a problem. I mean, to some degree, we'll blame the Democrats for not letting us put a candidate on the ballot. They're the ones trying to deprive the citizens of TX-22 from a choice in the election.

Thing is, those 3 Republicans are going to remember. And, well, you ran your mouth a little, after winning the primary (how dare they suggest the Hammer wouldn't win the primary!!! had to rub their faces in that win.) So it's gonna be a little hard to claim that the Democrats are the ones depriving Texans of their choice. I mean, a lot of people will believe them. But not everyone.

So here you are, trying to hoard every little lawyer-paying penny in your campaign fund, yet faced with the necessity to make it look like you didn't fuck up, that you're not the one responsible for the depriving a bunch of American-loving citizens from a choice in November. I mean, I suppose Tony and Clarence might rush things through at SCOTUS for you. But what you really really need is a way to look like you're still fighting. Without once spending a dime of your own campaign money. Hell, it's even better if SCOTUS delays after the election, at this point, if they're going to decide you have to remain on the ballot. Because it's more important to stay out of jail, now, than to win your measly Congressional seat back. Stay out of jail, pick up some nice lobbying contracts. That's the ticket.

Gotta find a way to get some other person to take on Lampson. And if ye can't, then gotta find a way to save your pennies for the get outta jail fund.

Comments

[mk]

Nice one, EW. As bad as things are internationally, I am still awestruck at how the political picture here has changed. If you'd told me two years ago that DeLay would be so screwed six ways to Sunday by the 2006 elections, I'd have said you were smokin' something.
It's like the karma that Josh Marshall described as overtaking Katherine Harris. It's a long long way from a happy ending, but it sure as hell is more than schadenfreude -- it's the beginning of the justice these folks deserve.

[emptywheel]

Yeah, as I said at DKos. Katherine Harris and Tom DeLay are God's proof in such thing as karma. It'd be even better if we could force DeLay to look like he was running, so he'd have to spend more of those lawyer fee dollars on electoral politics. Anything to see his ass get to jail quicker, I say. DeGuerin will only help him so long as he keeps paying the bills.

[mamayaga]

Just read over at the Muck that Buckham is holding out from the inevitable guilty plea longer than expected, and that Ney seems to have money from nowhere (it's not from his defense fund) to pay his lawyers. Could it be that there is still a deep well of $$$ into which the really bad, really key Repug actors can tap? If the GOP can come up with $3 mil for the NH phone jammers, how much could they produce for people with genuine dynasty-toppling dirt? And remember, when you look at all the money that was apparently laundered by the Delay-Abramoff-GOP crime organization, most of it is still unaccounted for.

[Steve]

It's a given, of course, that there is no way in hell the Supreme Court takes this case.

The Fifth Circuit is one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country, and being the court that covers Texas, if DeLay had juice anywhere it would be with that court. If he can't even win there, you know he's finished as a legal matter.

[CaseyL]

If DeLay somehow finds the baksheesh to actually campaign, and tries to present himself as the victim of a Democratic smear job, the Democratic candidate might want to point out the disparity between the amount of money DeLay claims to have "brought home" and the amount that DeLay kept for himself. Call him Tom "Pennies on the Dollar" DeLay, for instance.

[Davis X. Machina]

If the GOP can come up with $3 mil for the NH phone jammers, how much could they produce for people with genuine dynasty-toppling dirt?

Three million dollars is from-between-the-sofa-cushions money for these people.

[emptywheel]

Davis X

Careful. All that "stay out of jail" money is cutting into some of these guys' campaigning. NH GOP is broke. Ney is using his campaign money to stay out of jail (in a reasonably close race). And really, DeLay won't be spending this money on a race. It's spoken for already. I think Burns, too, is burning up his campaign money on lawyers.

[kim]

Using campaign funds for his legal defense was Tom Delay's latest and greatest scam, and entirely in character - he's the consumate slimeball. He'll be picking pockets all the way to jail.

[orchid314]

I know that Tom Delay has seemingly insurmountable problems at the moment, but never underestimate the capacity of the Bush cultists to stick by their own. And the Houston suburbs are nothing if not ground zero for the Bush cultists. I honestly would not be surprised if Delay gets the win in November, while the rest of the country trends toward the Democrats.

[bboop]

Tom Delay won 62% of the vote in the TX-22 primary. He bragged openly about his win over the other 3 candidates. What he does not mention and it gets overlooked too quickly: is that only 6-7% of the Republicans in TX-22 district came out to vote. 6-7%!!! That's documented. I do not know what they normally get for participation in their local primaries in TX, but other states ordinarily get out approx. 20-30% of the registered voters in any district regardless of their party affiliation. TX-22 stayed home, they just didn't vote - even with massive efforts to bring people to the polls. That says it all for me.

[Rick B]

bboop,

Don't put too much faith in that low turnout figure. There were no hot state races to draw voters out, and while I live in Fort Worth some 200 miles north of Sugarland, I don't think there were any hot local races to draw out voters either.

That 6-7% may still be a little low, but not by much.

Still, While in 2004 Bush beat Kerry in that district 64% to 36%, DeLay only beat an unknown and poorly funded Democratic challenger 55% to 41% (4% to other.) If I were a betting man my money would be on the Democrat, Nick Lampson, but it'll probably still come down to Democratic turnout in an otherwise christian right Republican district.

[Dismayed]

I usually try to say something intelligent on the rare occasion that I feel qualified to comment, but here... Fuck Tom Delay - Biggest Dick ever in politics. And to all the jackholes in Sugarland that voted for that waste of skin for all those years? - Screw them too. Breathe the Benzene. Breathe deep, Sugarland.