Out Foxed, again.

Most of the people I know are starting to treat today like a minor Democratic holiday. Tom Delay, evil dark lord of the House, has decieded to pack it in and resign from Congress. On the face, it looks like something great; the ouster of the, once, most powerful man in Washington, architect of the "K-Street Project," and patron saint of regresseve public policy.

The harsh reality is that the republicans have, once again, out foxed the democrats. With Delay out of the picture for the fall, democrats will be forced to run on their message - which if you are me is great, but if you live in Texas, may not be as effective. More than that, democrats have lost the very symbol of corruption that would, more than likely, have ussured in a demoratic majority. It's a real dog fight now.

With a "clean" republican running for Delay's seat, Nick Lampson will have to run a real campaign. Face it, with Delay in the race, Lampson really just needed to show up on the ballot. Now he's got to beat somebody, who is another question.

Deomcrats have lost their best friend today. Delay has become for the democrats, what Clinton was for republicans-someone that gets us to rally together to put down.

The ball in in the democrats court. The necessisty for a clear strong message has increased ten fold over night. I do not sugest that the should start running to the center, not at all. Clear concise, effective statements about fiscal reponcibility, common scense Homeland Security, a 21st Century education system, Health Care solutions, and a Military reajusted to fight the enemy's of today (all positives) should (in my view) be the democratic party's main focus now. The democrats had more sucess letting the republicans eat their own anyway, so lets hope that after digesting Mr. Delay they end up with a big old stomache ache, and don't show up in November. These are very tenious days, and it is important not to relax or over celebrate others misfortune - schadenfreude anyone?