Rep. Tom DeLay handily won the Republican primary for the 22nd District in Texas Tuesday, picking up 62 percent of the vote. Tom Campbell finished a distant second with about 30 percent; two other candidates were in the single digits. However, the 62 percent is far below what DeLay had won in three previous primaries (1996, 2000, 2002): in each of those three elections he captured at least 80 percent of the vote (in other reelection primaries he was unopposed).
DeLay is already looking ahead to the general election in November, where he will face Democrat Nick Lampson. “It’s always easy to beat Lampson,” DeLay told the Houston Chronicle. Other observers are less convinced. “He still has a hell of a fight in the general election,” said SMU political scientist Cal Jillson.
Is this really the kind of guy that we want to be championing the cause? Oh well, with 60% of the vote I guess so. I am going to bang my head against the wall now.
Is this really the kind of guy that we want to be championing the cause?
If you have any sense of decency, then no, it isn’t.
I despise Mr. DeLay, much as I do Mr. Bush, but unfortunately if you look at history, many of humanity’s greatest achievements were espoused and pushed through by some of the nastiest of human beings. In my own party, I suspect Mr. Johnson would qualify. When you have an overarching goal that requires the efforts of a nation (or in this case, all of humanity), you take your friends where you can get them. There are limits; I would never vote for Mr. Bush or anyone like him, but I’m also not going to oppose the VSE just because he pushed it through.
— Donald
OFF TOPIC FROM THIS THREAD – Anyone know anything about the “Blackstar” tow-stage-to-orbit project disclosed in this week’s AvWeek? If this is for real, if it really worked, and if it’s truly been mothballed, I wonder if it might be an “alternative access” vehicle?
— Donald
“Is this really the kind of guy that we want to be championing the cause?”
Yes. He’s effective and gets things done.
Hey, Saddam Hussein was also effective and got lots of things done. Shall we reinstall him?
Chance – No he wasn’t. Saddam failed at his various wars of conquest and eventually lost his own country. Shortly he will lose his life.
I’m not going to get into a pissing contest. Suffice it to say that your logic has an ends-justify-the-means vibe to it that I disagree with. When you make a deal with the devil, you get burned.
So DeLay is the equivelant of Hussein?
You people are so out of touch with reality it is pathetic.
Donald: Obviously the only reason that Tom DeLay ever cared about NASA was that JSC was near his district, then in his district after he penciled it in. You can expect Lampson to care about NASA, just as he always has, if he wins the election. I know that my views on spaceflight are not popular in the Lampson campaign office, but all sides ought to agree that honesty is a step in the right direction.
Deep down you are all a bunch of political money weenies, and most of you would sell out in a minute if you thought some corrupt politician would back your space exploration fantasy. (snicker)
I have a plan to build a TSTO Tractor/Hay Bailer. I have a plan, that is what is important.
I will use my down on the farm personality to convince people to back my plan.
I will be plowin’ my patch on Mars in nuthin’ flat!
About the blackstar, I read that article, but I have no other knowledge of it beyond rumors and what not. The concensus around my office by all the ex-air force guys is that the AF either never built a working craft or it didn’t work that well if they did.
As to the other topic, I love how people put words in my mouth. No where did I claim that Delay was equivelant to Hussein. I simply stated that a particular set of qualities (being effective and getting things done) may be necessary qualities for a representative, but they are not sufficient qualities. I then used Hussein as an example of this contrast between necessary and sufficient. And despite the objections raised earlier he is a good example. Multiple decades of control and only an external invasion could get him out, not internal dissent or more subtle policies. Sorry, that’s effective in pretty much any objective observors book.
Thanks, Chance. I have to say that my thought while reading the article was, if this thing actually did make it to orbit, especially if it happened more than one or two times, how did they keep it a secret? Suborbital flights, of course, would be easier to hide.
— Donald