Reply #24: it's already being done

[Lexingtonian]

The DCCC plan is to "nationalize" Tom DeLay in '06. Chances are there will be convictions, indictments, and plea bargains coming out of Texas to keep the game happenin'.

Yes, the prospects are good that DeLay will ultimately retire/resign before the election. Despite all the noise and efforts, or pretense of effort, to save him.

But you have to consider the context. The Republican margin in the House is just about exactly the relative advantage they have in gerrymandered seats- about 15- plus the relative advantage they have in incumbents party-mismatched relative to their districts- about 15. So the whole margin exists due to gerrymandering and incumbency.

The problem for them is that (1) their 2002 partisan gerrymanders are getting unsafe very quickly in swing states, and (2) their incumbents in party-mismatched or swing districts are getting unwilling to hang on for the good of the Party, feeling the electorate swing against the Party and to a lesser degree themselves, getting aged, and so on- they want out. It's all a lot more fragile than their 2002 and 2004 margin gains- just about all at the cost of Blue Dog Democrats- suggest.

Republicans are in dilemma imposed by the way DeLay was so good at knocking out and turning Blue Dog Democrats. He was/is the center of their survival strategy as a majority in the House as the country trends away from them. Maybe keeping DeLay on sinks them, but it may be that kicking DeLay out sinks them. Their margin is that precarious, the national political scene so difficult to assess, that it's not easy to figure out. Right now they're doing the safest and easiest thing- keeping him on.

Personally, I think it's all rearranging the deck chairs on a melting ice floe. It doesn't actually matter, their situation is defined by the solid slippage of the electorate against them (rather than emotional stuff) and the way they are boxed in by their policy choices and history. Tom DeLay epitomizes their policy choices and history either way- that conservative 'principle' is always just sloganeering, conservative rule (as Disraeli famously said) at best hypocrisy and deceit.