I always liked Fred. I voted for him in the primary, even though he had dropped out of the race by then.
Redbob, parts of rural Galveston county are in TX-22, but I don’t think it includes Galveston Island. This is a conservative district, though not as strong as it was before DeLay redew the lines out here. I think enthusiasm for Palin will help the GOP vote effort, which will allow Pete to defeat the carpet-bagger by a comfortable margin. The only reason the carpet-bagger won in 2006 (a good dem year) is because the Republican running against him was a write-in, and there was a special election for TX-22 on the same ballot, so it was confusing. Even then, the race was still close.
Mainland Galveston County is TX-22, Nick Lampson. Galveston Island is TX-14, Ron Paul. The southside of TX-22 is where the voting concern is for Olson.
This was in an article in the Dallas Morning News today, who endorses McCain-Palin.......
10.22.08 AP: Democrats see chance for more wins in House races
Lampson’s seat in the 22nd Congressional District should have been an easy pickup for Republicans, with a traditional 60 percent GOP population. Lampson won the seat in 2006 after DeLay resigned his leadership post amid a legal and ethical scandal and a write-in candidate replaced him. In 2004, Bush carried the district with 64 percent of the vote.
But Lampson has buried himself in constituent work since taking office and cast a few key votes that put him at odds with Democratic leadership, including a vote against the $700 billion economic rescue plan. He said he has held 600 town halls attended by 60,000 people since he first won the seat. “It’s given me an unbelievable amount of momentum in winning the election,” Lampson said. “I have had so much contact with the public it’s unbelievable and they saw me in the light of the leader that is responsive to the community.” Lampson also could be helped by Obama’s candidacy. About 10 percent of the voting age population in the district is African American. Another 18 percent is Hispanic. “I expect there will be record turnout of African Americans even in places like Texas where Obama is unlikely to win,” said David Bositis, a senior research associate the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
GOP challenger Pete Olson, a former Naval officer and chief of staff to Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, declined to be interviewed for this story. He has accused Lampson during the campaign of being a thinly disguised liberal whose voting record is out of sync with the district. In late October, the National Republican Congressional Committee reduced the $1.5 million it planned to spend on television ads in the Lampson-Olson race by at least $900,000 and sliced the time they were to run from three weeks to one.
10.21.08 The Hill: Lampson the latest NRA Democrat
Calling him a “great friend to gun owners and hunters in the Lone Star State,” the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Tuesday formally endorsed Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson (Texas), who is in a pitched battle to continue representing a solidly Republican district. The endorsement from the powerful gun lobby — which has already blessed Lampson with an “A” voting record — could go a long way toward combating the attempts by Lampson’s Republican challenger, Pete Olson, to paint Lampson as a liberal. The Olson campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Lampson is now at least the seventh House Democrat to win an endorsement from the Second Amendment protectionist lobby.
TAB