The Hammer Nails

Haven't we been reading of late that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was in danger of not even being renominated to run for another term in his Houston-area congressional district?

Looks like he's been misunderestimated again:

In his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay held off three challengers to keep the Republican nomination to the U.S. House. Now he faces what many consider the real contest - a general election fight against an organized, well-funded Democrat with a score to settle.

Uh-huh. Gee, don't all Dems seem to have "scores to settle" these days?

Nick Lampson, who was unopposed in Tuesday's primary, represented a district adjacent to DeLay's for four terms until it was redrawn in a redistricting plan engineered by DeLay. Lampson lost in 2004 to Republican Ted Poe.

Ah. Well, too bad, l'il donkey. All DeLay "engineered" was the de-gerrymandering of a state that was heavily Republican and yet somehow kept producing a majority Democrat House delegation. That included DeLay's own seat, which presumably wasn't made more difficult for him to retain.

DeLay, 58, held on to his ballot position by avoiding public discussions of his considerable political problems - a felony money-laundering indictment, close ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the loss of his leadership position.

Instead, DeLay campaigned at carefully orchestrated events, avoided direct interviews with reporters and largely focused on his hometown of Sugar Land. It paid off with a 2-to-1 victory margin over lawyer Tom Campbell, who had ties to the first President Bush's administration, and two other candidates.

Ya gotta admire the impermeability of Extreme Media conventional wisdom. The "felony money-laundering indictment" is a joke, the Abramoff stuff is a chimera, and had DeLay wanted to return to the Majority Leader's post, he would have done so easily.

None of the above is any secret, other than to the libs who hate DeLay like they hate George Bush. And while it is equally undeniable that the Hammer has taken some hits over the past year, they've hardly been enough to endanger his House seat. The press just wishes it was true, and these days lefties believe that wishing makes things so.

"Democrat attacks and the politics of personal destruction were heavily used by my opponents in this Republican primary, and they were rejected just like they will be in November," DeLay said in a statement.

The Hammer won't necessarily win in a walk, but he will win.

And then the Donks can go after him for his next trangression: "stealing the election."

UPDATE: So will go the Dems' dreams of impeachment....