Burnt Orange Report

WaPo Touches On '06 Texas Races

By Vince Leibowitz

A story in this Sunday's Washington Post about some high-dollar fund-raising efforts by President Bush and Vice-President Cheney touched on a couple of marquee Texas races for 2006.

Specifically, the article mentions the pending Lampson/DeLay match up in CD 22 and the '06 race for governor.

In particular, the Post notes that "Democrats are pushing donors big and small" to help former Congressman Nick Lampson raise $1 million before the end of the year to help fund what the paper terms his "long shot" bid to unseat the House Majority Leader in his home district.

Of course, the Post also touches on one of the things that may help DeLay in 2006:

But there DeLay has access to some kinds of money that his opponents can't match. He stuffed hundreds of millions of dollars into the energy and transportation bills passed last month to benefit projects in his suburban Houston district. He'll spend much of this month making sure the largess -- including $50 million to improve an interstate that cuts through his district and $324 million for Houston Metro -- does not go unappreciated. On Monday, DeLay will show a softer side, speaking at the opening of the foster care foundation he and his wife started.

The Post had relatively little to say about the race for governor, but mentioned Democrat Chris Bell and his ethics complaint against DeLay:

Speaking of DeLay, his former colleague ex-representative Chris Bell (D-Tex.) is planning to run next year for governor of Texas. Bell broke an unwritten truce last year between the two parties when he filed an ethics complaint against DeLay. Bell, a freshman who earlier that year had been redistricted out of his seat -- thanks to partisan maneuvering directed by DeLay -- is the first major Democrat to indicate he will challenge Gov. Rick Perry (R).