Apparently, last week’s meeting of the Benkiser Gang to settle on the One True Write-In wasn’t enough to accomplish the task, because there’s another meeting planned for Thursday to take another whack at it.
State and local Republican Party officials will hold a “gathering” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at First Baptist Church of Pearland to discuss throwing support behind a single GOP write-in candidate for Congressional District 22.
Party sources said the event is not an official meeting of the party – yet it won’t be open to the public or the press. Precinct chairs within CD-22, GOP chairmen and their staffs from Fort Bend, Harris, Galveston and Brazoria counties will be invited.
Also, Texas Republican Party Executive Committee members within CD-22, possibly other state GOP officials and Republican elected officials from the four counties within CD-22 may attend.
The meeting isn’t official, because the courts have ruled the Republican Party can have no official candidate since Tom DeLay withdrew from the ballot.
While state and local GOP leaders have discussed throwing their support behind one write-in candidate to run against Democrat Nick Lampson and Libertarian Bob Smither, Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace already has announced he’s mounting a write-in candidacy.
That sets up a potential scenario where Republicans at Thursday’s “gathering” might choose a write-in candidate other than Wallace, leaving two GOP contenders running as write-ins against the only two candidates whose names will appear on the ballot – Smither and Lampson.
I just want to know if DeLay will attend this meeting like he did the last one. It is behind closed doors, after all, so it’s a natural for him.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The biggest threat to the prospects of any or all write-in candidates is the support that Libertarian Bob Smither is going to get. I say it’s at best a fifty-fifty shot that all the write-ins combined do better than Smither. If the powers that be in the GOP ever acknowledge this and make as strong a push for Smither as they say they will do for the One True Write-In, this race could get interesting again. They don’t appear to be showing any sign of this, and I doubt they will. I can’t say they’re wrong to ignore that possibility, either. Were the tables turned, I don’t know how happy I’d be about Gerry Birnberg and Boyd Richie urging support for a Green candidate, even one who pledged to caucus with the Dems. I can see Chris’ point about “names on the ballot”, but the brand has to mean something, too. Certainly, one would expect it to mean something to the people in charge of it.
By the way, and for what it’s worth, I’ve not see Smither’s name come up in any serious fashion on any of the expert prognosticators’ sites. Maybe that’s reinforcement for my belief that Benkiser et al will not deviate from the One True Write-In path, and maybe it’s a sign of myopicness on their part. We’ll see what happens on Thursday.
Let me see if I have this straight. Republicans are meeting in a Baptist Church, but it is not open to the public?
Would public include the members of the church who actually own the space in which the group is meeting? And, by the way, is the church charging rent for the meeting room, or is it being provided free of charge, thus probably amounting to an improper political contribution.
Why not just go use a meeting room at a hotel, or meet at the local Denny’s? Why do they need to involve the Baptist church – as if we didn’t already know that answer.
I think the meeting’s a formality and the bandits will choose Wallach
Lampson now has a choice of campaign theme songs: The Magnificent Seven or The Good, the Bad, and the Angel Eyes
Lampson is preparing to debate Wallach. Check it out.