Gammage gets going

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bob Gammage kicked off his campaign yesterday in Sugar Land.

Gammage began his "Set the Record Straight" campaign tour in Sugar Land — part of the district he represented in Congress and the home of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, whom Democrats hope to use as a poster boy for Republican political corruption.

Gammage, 67, a former legislator, congressman and Texas Supreme Court justice, had a 25-year public career before leaving office 10 years ago. Chris Bell, a former congressman and Houston city councilman, is Gammage's most prominent opponent in the March 7 primary.

But Gammage says he is not running against Bell or his other primary opponents, Felix Alvarado and Rashad Jafer.

"I don't intend to say anything derogatory about any Democrat," Gammage said in Sugar Land. "Anyone of us is better than what we've got."

Instead Gammage focused on what he said is the "corrupt political machine that has betrayed the public trust and turned its back on hard-working Texas families."

Well, that's what I was hoping to see in the primary. Keep the focus on Rick Perry and the job he hasn't done, and avoid trashing your opponents. Whoever wins this thing is going to need the support of the other guys in order to have any hope of pulling off the strategy of winning a four-way race with the Democratic base. As for tying Rick Perry to Tom DeLay, if the news for DeLay keeps getting worse as it looks like it might, that ought to be helpful.

Gammage has quite the ambitious schedule for the next few days. He's getting some decent press coverage along the way. As Vince notes, many stories pick up on Gammage's role in the cleanup of the State House in the wake of the Sharpstown scandal from 1973, often mentioning fellow "Dirty Thirty" candidates Ben Grant and Fred Head as well. It's not too shabby a narrative for them to have. It'll be interesting to see how long that lasts, especially if Gammage loses the primary to Chris Bell. For now though, it's good to see.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on January 10, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack