It was an embarrassing scene. The one where Tom DeLay—boisterous bully of the U.S. House, former Majority Leader, and true face of the Republican Party—turned tail and ran like a sixth-grade sissy who’d just had his ass whipped by a fourth-grade schoolgirl.

DeLay recently spent a ton of other people’s money securing the nomination for another House term against several congressional wannabes in the March GOP primary warm-up for November. Suddenly—less than a month later—Sugar Land’s most famous indictee threw in the towel without ever climbing into the ring for the real match. DeLay claimed the general election contest with former Congressman Nick Lampson, the Democratic nominee for Congressional District 22, would be a “nasty” referendum on DeLay. Translation: it would be an election in which DeLay would be called upon to defend his “championship title” to being one of the most worthless solons to ever soil the halls of democracy. It would be a plebiscite on him and all those corrupt interests he’s been a proxy for all these years, like Jack Abramoff and other K Street lobbyists and their clients who now own Capitol Hill and the GOP.

The real reason the Bully-in-Chief quit the race against Lampson, of course, was because he was going to lose, and things were not going to start moving in his direction, what with all the Abramoff and TRMPAC sewage creeping up around his neckline.

But as we know, you can never trust DeLay. Although he says he is, he’s not really going away. DeLay’s the schoolyard bully who, when successfully challenged, runs to a safe distance and then sticks his tongue out at you. He’s one of the people who believe the rules are for everyone else, whatever the rules might be, like telling the truth or obeying the law. Remember, DeLay said Abramoff was one of his dearest friends before DeLay said he wasn’t. This is the man, you’ll recall, who once boasted, “I am the federal government,” when told he could not smoke his cigar in a federal building. When asked to explain why he didn’t serve in Viet Nam, he said, “ So many minority youths had volunteered that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself.”

Those who become mad with power become madmen, period. And they bring their sycophants along with them in their madness. There’s always an angle to what they do—even if it’s just the extraction of revenge—whether or not the motive or end is rational or legitimate. So, instead of stepping down immediately, DeLay has decided to hang on for awhile (until June, perhaps) in an attempt to manipulate the congressional-selection process. He says he’s withdrawing from the general election and will “move” to Virginia so that he becomes “ineligible” under the Texas Election Code. Through this charade DeLay and his backroom confederates hope to engineer the selection of a replacement nominee of their choice through a small district executive committee of the Republican Party. Contrary to the assumptions of the press and others, there are some of us who believe a replacement for DeLay cannot be lawfully selected, given the facts that now exist, and that DeLay is betting a friendly Republican judiciary will come to the Party’s aid should the legal arrows start to fly.

In the meantime, DeLay has appeared on serial-marryer and illegal drug user Rush Limbaugh’s “shout radio” program to play the victim. Poor Tom. He’s been so picked on and demonized by that partisan prosecutor from The People’s Republic of Austin, the left-wingers and the press. How was he to know that several of his closest associates were trading off his name, or that payments to his wife and another family member were not really on the up-and-up? Duped, he was, into those expensive golfing trips and vacations to fancy places. Et cetera.

When DeLay is not busy manipulating the process or exploiting the airwaves these days, he’s retreating to the protective sanctuary of his “religious” defenders—that annoying and dyslexic-by-choice bunch of so-called Christians who read Matthew 21:12 as saying you should bring the money-changers into the temple, not throw them out. They are the same ones who will swear in the name of their Creator that Mathew 1:7 says “judge first, lest ye be judged.”

Meanwhile, like a Baskerville curse unleashed on his district and all the country, DeLay’s hounds are on the roam. Last Thursday, Democrat Lampson, one heck of a fine fellow and a courteous man of unquestionable substance, tried to hold a press conference in front of Sugar Land City Hall to call for a May special election to fill the vacancy that DeLay’s surrender will create. Let’s allow the people to elect someone to represent them over the next many months, Lampson wanted to say. This is a position DeLay opposed. DeLay wants to leave the district without representation for half a year. Gov. Rick Perry, a DeLay lapdog, quickly agreed that the people should not be represented. This is the same governor who did not hesitate to call quick special elections in state house districts 48 and 106 when he thought the political winds favored Republicans. This is the same idiot governor who urgently called multiple special sessions to enact DeLay’s congressional redistricting scheme to insure “proper” representation of the people, while ignoring property tax and education reform.

As Lampson spoke in favor of the right to vote, a horde of thugs organized by DeLay’s still-employed campaign manager, Chris Homan, aggressively overran the press conference, shouting, waving signs and blasting an air horn. It was an in-your-face political assault. One brownshirt hit Marsh Rovai, a 70-year-old Lampson supporter, and another reportedly pushed a “protest” sign in her face. When she tried to defend herself, a man wearing a Tom DeLay tee-shirt slapped her cap down over her face. One person described the Republican aggressors as “mainstream party regulars” from Fort Bend County, including Ken Dexter, a member of the grand jury. A Republican activist said that the “hounds” consisted of “several Republican leaders . . . from the full spectrum of the party.”

Homan, who recently worked for Dallas Congressman Pete Sessions and, in my view, engineered the incredibly phony claim that Martin Frost plastered campaign signs all over Sessions’ kid’s school during their 2004 race, sent an e-mail to many Republicans the day before the Sugar Land offensive, providing details on a rendezvous point and declaring, “Let’s give Lampson a parting shot that wrecks his press conference.” He instructed his political attack dogs to call the DeLay campaign office to coordinate their activities. The organization of the Sugar Land assault was reportedly assisted by many others, including Cress Ann Poston, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee. Several witnesses identified Terese Raia of Sugar Land, another SREC member and local precinct chair, who has been described as one of the most energetic members of Fort Bend County’s Christian Coalition, as being front and center in the mob, along with her husband. Raia and Poston are two of the four highest-ranking State Republican Party officials in their Sugar Land districts.

Homan was unapologetic after the Segretti-esque deed, pledging to keep up such assaults through November. Another Republican activist dismissed the attack as “good spirited politics.” Only a few sane Republicans saw the attack as a poor reflection on their party and Fort Bend County. They were, of course, promptly attacked by the “real” Republicans. So far, Homan’s loudmouth boss has been silent on the matter, something you can take as an endorsement of these political tactics. It’s DeLay’s way of sticking his tongue out at you.

Make no mistake. These people were not a few unsophisticated and errant campaign volunteers caught up in the moment, like a batch of unruly second graders at the bowling alley. These were grown women and men determined to chokehold democracy and believing they were right to do so. This was the Republican Party itself, and its face is still that of Tom DeLay.

Ken Molberg is the former Democratic Chairman of Dallas County and longtime Texas Democratic Party leader. He also is an attorney who specializes in employment law.

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