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DeLay Smile May Foil Democrat Campaign Ads

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus
DeLay Smile May Foil Democrat Campaign Ads
Associated Press | Oct 20 | LAURIE KELLMAN

WASHINGTON - Why is Tom DeLay smiling? After all, he's been indicted. Forced out of his job as House majority leader. And called into court for fingerprinting and a mugshot like a common criminal.

Answer: A photo of DeLay grinning from ear to ear doesn't pack quite the punch in a Democratic attack ad as one that looks more like the mugshot of, say, actor Hugh Grant.

Note the House of Representatives security pin on DeLay's lapel.


He looks in the photo like a proud member of Congress who might just have won the lottery, not one indicted on charges of money laundering. The photo looks like it could have been taken anywhere.

And that was just the point.

Democrats nationally are already sounding as if they'll make DeLay the poster boy for bad Republican behavior in next year's elections, when every House seat and a third of those in the Senate are up for grabs.

DeLay, an 11-term Texas congressman and former pest exterminator famous for enforcing GOP loyalty, faced a tough reelection campaign even before the indictment.

In the 2004 elections, DeLay won 55 percent of the vote, a relatively weak showing for a veteran House leader. His challenger next year is expected to be former Rep. Nick Lampson, who lost his seat in 2004 after he was forced to run in a new district under a redistricting plan pushed by DeLay.

For his mandatory booking Thursday, which caused him to miss voting on a gun industry bill popular in his home state, DeLay did everything he could to prevent images of the event from being committed to film.

Rather, the photo projects the confidence DeLay exhibits in all of his scuffles. For anyone who didn't get it, DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, articulated the message it was intended to send.

"If you saw Congressman DeLay's mugshot, he was smiling," DeGuerin told reporters. "He's eager and he's ready to go."
 

ummbikes

Don't mess with the Santas
Apr 16, 2002
1,794
0
Napavine, Warshington
It's easy.

Hi I'm Tom Delay and it brings me joy knowing the stupid electorate allowed me to screw with freedom in Texas and all of America.

You deserve me America!

Now excuse me while Rove and I jack off to our copy of Triumph of the Will that we had our man George W. edited into Forest Gump style.

Good night America!
 

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,335
2,448
Hypernormality
He looks scared to me. He looks like a used car salesman who hasn't made a sale in 4 months and has one last chance not to flushed into unemployment desperatly trying to impress a customer.

"Old Gill's in trouble this time..."
 

DRB

unemployed bum
Oct 24, 2002
15,242
0
Watchin' you. Writing it all down.
Don't worry there are probably a few more of these in his future......along with a number of his fellow GOP compadres. I guess its not what he is doing in the mugshots, its how many of them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/25/AR2005112501423.html

Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them, according to two sources knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress, lawyers and others close to the probe said. The investigators are looking at payments made by Abramoff and his colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and at actions taken by senior Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, lawyers and others familiar with the probe said.
Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R), now facing separate campaign finance charges in his home state of Texas, is one of the members under scrutiny, the sources said. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and other members of Congress involved with Indian affairs, one of Abramoff's key areas of interest, are also said to be among them.