|
DeLay wins four-way battle for nomination
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-08 14:04
Rep. Tom DeLay won the GOP nomination to the House on Tuesday, beating three
challengers in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside
as majority leader.
With 14 percent of precincts reporting, DeLay had 10,005 votes, or 64
percent. His closest challenger, environmental attorney Tom Campbell, had 4,049
votes, or 26 percent.
"I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today's vote shows they
have placed their full faith in me," DeLay said in a statement. "Not only did
they reject the politics of personal destruction, but they strongly rejected the
candidates who used those Democrat tactics as their platform."
In the other big Texas primary race, a former Democratic congressman from
Houston won the right to challenge Republican Gov. Rick Perry in a state where
the GOP holds every statewide office.
Chris Bell prevailed over Bob Gammage, a former Texas Supreme Court justice
who jumped into the race in December after a decade out of politics. Perry won
his primary easily, collecting 85 percent of the vote against three little-known
opponents.
With more than 20 percent of precincts reporting, Bell had 129,052 votes, or
63 percent. Gammage had 59,435, or 29 percent.
Bell said the victory was "exactly the boost my campaign needed" heading into
what could be a historic four-way race for governor in November. Two
independents with considerable political charisma 錕斤拷 Texas Comptroller Carole
Keeton Strayhorn and musician and professional wiseacre Kinky Friedman 錕斤拷 are
seeking enough signatures from voters who do not vote in the primary to get onto
the fall ballot.
In a third contest Tuesday, Democratic voters in a congressional district
stretching from San Antonio to Laredo had to decide a rematch between freshman
Rep. Henry Cuellar and Ciro Rodriguez, who served 3 1/2 terms on Capitol Hill
before losing to Cuellar in 2004. With no Republican running in the district,
the winner will take the seat.
Rodriguez seized on a photo of President Bush affectionately cupping
Cuellar's cheeks at the recent State of the Union address to portray Cuellar as
a stealth Republican.
With about half of precincts reporting, Rodriguez had 11,269 votes, or 56.4
percent. Cuellar had 7,304 votes, or 36.6 percent, but votes from his base along
the U.S.-Mexico border were still being counted.
DeLay, 58, was indicted last year and is awaiting trial on charges he
illegally funneled corporate donations to GOP candidates for the Texas House in
2002. The Republicans won a majority in the Legislature that year, and then
pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that sent
more Republicans to Washington in 2004.
DeLay has also come under scrutiny over his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff,
who pleaded guilty to fraud in January and is cooperating in an investigation of
influence-peddling on Capitol Hill.
Tuesday's contest was DeLay's first serious primary challenge in the 22 years
since he took office.
Campbell, a lawyer who was general counsel for the National Oceanic
Atmospheric Administration during the first Bush administration, was considered
the front-runner among DeLay's Republican challengers, who also included Mike
Fjetland and Pat Baig. Campbell portrayed himself as a man of integrity and
branded DeLay "unelectable."
After voting in his hometown of Sugar Land, DeLay returned to Washington for
a campaign fundraiser hosted by two lobbyists. He criticized his opponents for
their "politics of personal destruction," saying such tactics "were rejected
just like they will be in November."
The Democratic nominee in the fall will be Nick Lampson, a well-financed
former congressman ousted from office in 2004 under the new congressional map
engineered by DeLay. Lampson had no primary opponent Tuesday.
DeLay "gets headlines for all the wrong reasons," Lampson said Tuesday. "I'm
looking forward to that headline on November 8th: 'No Further DeLay.'"
The state's top election official predicted only 13 percent of the 12.7
million registered voters would cast primary ballots, so Strayhorn and Friedman
should not have much trouble finding the 45,000-plus voters they each need to
sign their petitions over the next two months.
Strayhorn, who calls herself "one tough grandma," got elected comptroller as
a Republican but is running for governor as an independent, avoiding a primary
against the popular Perry. She is the mother of White House press secretary
Scott McClellan. Friedman is a cigar-chomping cowboy musician whose backup group
on the road was called the Texas Jewboys.
At least two veterans of the Iraq war are running for Congress from Texas.
David T. Harris, a Democrat, is expected to take on Rep. Joe Barton (news, bio,
voting record) in November, and Van Taylor, a Republican, won the nomination
Tuesday to go up against Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards (news, bio, voting record)
in the Crawford-area district that includes Bush's ranch.
|
