Troubles erode DeLay's support in 22nd District

From the Houston Chronicle:

A criminal indictment and continuing investigations have severely eroded support for U.S. Rep Tom DeLay in his district, most notably among Republicans who have voted for him before, according to a Houston Chronicle poll.

Only half of those who cast ballots for DeLay in 2004 said they will do so again. And while a fourth of the 2004 DeLay voters still aren't sure whom they will vote for this year, almost 20 percent have defected to other candidates.

Responding to the poll this evening, DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty said the result is "contrary to the strong support we're seeing for Congressman DeLay throughout the district."

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Oh my god! This is great!

Of course, I'm very happy that DeLay, who recently lost his House leadership position, now stands a very good chance of losing his seat outright. But there is more significance to this poll than meets the eye: it shows that Texas Republicans, the staunchest of the staunch, have their breaking point. Tom DeLay has safely held his seat in Sugarland, a bland and materialistic suburb of Houston, for twenty years. They've loved this guy, and the Republican majority there really loved him. And they've supported his loony right-wing extremism for that long, too. For years, it seemed like there was no position too bizarre that DeLay could take that would alienate his constituents. Even while his corruption scandals have bubbled up over the past two years, voters there have written it all off as politics.

But not now.

It appears that the triple whammy of multiple admonitions by the House Ethics Committee, multiple indictments in Austin for campaign finance corruption, and his close relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff have finally made the people of Sugarland come to realize what all sane Americans already know--Tom DeLay is a criminal, and his "conservatism" is simply a fraud.

So. Right-wing Americans can be persuaded, apparently. All it takes is about a hundred times more evidence than it would take to convince anybody else of anything else. The evidence must be flamboyant, obvious, over-the-top, and whatever other extreme adjectives you can imagine. The corporate media must pound away at that evidence, day after day, until even the left wing is bored with it.

And that's how you can change a conservative's mind. It's a lot of work, I know, but it is possible, and that's something. Right?

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