The first time I thought Talmadge Heflin might really lose in 2004 was when the stories about his and his wife's attempt to adopt his former housekeeper's baby hit the news (see here and here for background). What probably started as a good faith effort to do something charitable quickly became a public relations debacle for Heflin, and I'd be willing to say cost him some votes from people who probably wouldn't have given it much thought had it not been for those news stories. Given that his final margin of defeat was 13 votes, you can see what a disaster it was for him.

That's what I'm thinking about as I read all of the news coverage of State Rep. Gene Seaman's housing and tax issues. It's not just that he paid rent on an Austin condo for his wife out of campaign funds. He wasn't alone in this regard, and had that been all there was to it, he probably could have claimed it was a misunderstanding and seen the story go away in a day or two. But when you add in the fact that the checks were made payable to a company whose address is the Seamans' condo, that he blamed his wife for the error, and that there was also the little matter of claiming two homestead exemptions, for which they just paid over $11K in back taxes, well, it's not such a little deal any more. The whole thing looks bad, has been in the news for over a week, and doesn't even have a plausible claim of good intentions at its root.

It also doesn't help Seaman that his opponent is a rock star who gets stories like this written about him and pictures like this taken of him. (Who is also Texroots endorsed and very worthy of your support.) I've thought Seaman was a fat target for a long time, and I really hope I'm right in seeing a parallel to Talmadge Heflin for him. We'll see.