When It De-reigns, It De-vours

Yet more bad news for Unavoidable Delay: not only has he been indicted, not only are his aides pleading guilty already, not only did he lose his concealed gun permit because of his indictment, not only does he have a former Congressman running against him as a Democrat in a new district the the Dem once represented part of (and one who has been praised by St. Hillary herself), not only does he have a far-right theocratic ex-Republican Congressman running against him as an independent to split his vote, but now a somewhat-known person has been nominated against him by the Libertarians. Off the Kuff points out this report:

The Libertarian Party nominated Bob Smither, founder of the Friendswood-based Laura Recovery Center, to be its candidate for the seat now held by Republican Tom DeLay. ...

The engineering consultant is known for the tragic case that involved the kidnapping and murder of his daughter Laura Smither. The 12-year-old Friendswood girl was out for a jog in April 1997 when she was abducted.

Her body was found a 17 days later in a pond not far from her home.

Smither and his wife, Gay, helped found the Laura Recovery Center, a nationally recognized center that helps search for missing children. The center also serves as a national advocate for laws to keep children safe.

Even more unfortunately for Ever More Terminable Delay, this candidate doesn't take the hard-core anti-tax approach of the more radical Libertarians. Instead of simply opposing any taxes at all, he wants to shuffle the deck:

Prior to his nomination, which was done in a party district meeting and not via a primary election, Smither said one of his main campaign issues would be pushing for the Fair Tax, or national sales tax system, to replace federal income taxes. On that issue he finds himself on the same side of the issue as DeLay who is leading an effort to get the Fair Tax plan passed within the next two months.

This practically guarantees that he will take votes from Delay's Republican and conservative base, not from the anti-war or anti-drug-prohibitionists he might have otherwise grabbed from voting Lampson as the lesser evil. Tommy, you're looking more like toast.