DeLay's Successor

Clearly no motive is too low to be assigned to DDTom DeLay. Obviously he did the hari-kiri dance to keep the campaign money for a defense fund, and to try to save the seat for the Reptilican Party.

However, if old-line segregationist Bob Eckels gets the nomination, he will be hard to beat. Now a Harris County Commissioner, he started out as a School Board member when Impeach Earl Warren was, if not his slogan, that of his supporters.

Various other Texican State Senileists, Reprehensibles and Houston City Council Critters are threatening to run, but the Slangwhanger-in-Chief has yet to receive a morning-line on them from his folks back home in the flatlands.

A no-name quasi-moderate like Tom Campbell, the ex-NOAA lawyer who got 30% against DeLay in the primary, would be good for the Dems because independent Steve Stockman would siphon off all the serious right-wingers.

All the forecasts of Reptilican victory post-DeLay are based on ignoring Stockman. He could prove negligible, but many have yet to be convinced that a far-right candidate in the Texas 22nd District is not as serious a liability to the Reptilicans as was DeLay's upcoming Abramoff indictment.