Doubts Spread in DeLay’s Texas Stronghold

There’s nothing about Republican Rep. Tom DeLay personally that math teacher Denice Shelburne doesn’t like.

The Texas lawmaker attends her church, where he mingles with the congregation as an amiable neighbor. His wife, Christine, is lovely, Shelburne said, and DeLay’s 22nd District abounds with evidence of his good works. “I just think he’s a wonderful person,” she said.

But as DeLay’s legal problems have multiplied in recent months, even his supporters are having second thoughts about the 11-term congressman. With a rare four-way Republican primary set for Tuesday, Shelburne didn’t know how she would vote.

DeLay was forced to step down as House majority leader last fall after a Texas grand jury indicted him on charges of violating campaign finance laws. He has been admonished four times by the House Ethics Committee and has come under scrutiny for his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

“It’s difficult,” said Shelburne, 49. “You don’t want to convict him without a trial, but you can’t ignore everything that has happened -- though you don’t know how much of it is true. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Shelburne wasn’t alone. A poll conducted in January by the Houston Chronicle showed that a quarter of those who voted for DeLay in 2004 were undecided this year, and about 20% said they would vote for another candidate. About half of the people who voted for DeLay in 2004 said they would do so again.

DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty challenged the validity of the poll, saying the results were “contrary to what we’ve seen in the district.”

DeLay’s dominance in this largely Republican district -- which meanders from the manicured planned communities of Sugar Land to the manicured planned communities around the Johnson Space Center in Houston -- largely has been unquestioned for 22 years.

Although he is considered the favorite against three relatively unknown opponents, DeLay has launched an unusually aggressive primary campaign, block-walking the district and holding a series of meet-and-greets that have focused on his core conservative base.

“He’s been working hard, but is under the radar screen and avoiding big media events,” Rice University political scientist Robert Stein said. “His campaign people are making very targeted invitations to likely primary Republican voters.”

In contrast, conservative environmental lawyer Tom Campbell, considered the strongest of DeLay’s primary challengers, is trying hard to attract attention.

Since the beginning of the year, Campbell has taken his Voice of the Voters mobile home -- formerly used on family vacations -- to the streets every afternoon, shaking hands and talking to prospective voters. Evenings are spent at Rotary Club meetings or other neighborhood gatherings. He is running ads in community newspapers and on local television and radio stations. But the $175,000 Campbell has raised for the race can’t begin to compete with DeLay’s multimillion-dollar war chest.

“I’m just trying to show people that I’m here and am a credible alternative,” said Campbell, who helped settle Exxon Valdez oil spill claims as general counsel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under President George H.W. Bush.

Campbell, 51, said more seasoned candidates would have a better chance against DeLay, but “they wouldn’t run. If they lost, it would be the kiss of death politically for them here.”

Campbell -- who worked on the presidential campaigns of the first President Bush and Bob Dole -- has never run for office before.

“Here you have a man running for national office, and he’s not qualified to be a precinct chair,” DeLay spokeswoman Flaherty said of Campbell.

Last month, DeLay attacked Campbell’s Republican credentials, a move treated as a victory at the challenger’s campaign offices, a converted mattress store facing a freeway. (DeLay’s campaign office is next to a golf course.) “It shows that he’s worried,” said Michael Stanley, Campbell’s campaign manager.

One recent night, as Campbell presented his case to a gathering of Houston dentists, DeLay was across town at a fundraiser for the Harris County Republican Party, enjoying a beef dinner under twinkling chandeliers.

He received two standing ovations from the well-heeled crowd, and wowed them as a fast-talking auctioneer -- selling a Labrador puppy and five pairs of handmade cowboy boots. Earlier in the evening, he dismissed his legal troubles as “the politics of personal destruction.”

Outside a Sugar Land supermarket, resident Joy Chandler, 45, echoed DeLay’s assessment. “I think they’re blown out of proportion,” she said. “It’s not about what he did or didn’t do, it’s about politics. As long as he gets the job done, what do I care?”

The problem, she said, is that DeLay hasn’t been getting the job done: “He’s been distracted by everything.” Chandler, who has voted for DeLay for about the last 15 years, said she would shift her support to another Republican. “We need someone who has new ideas and can pay attention to the district more,” she said.

Such disaffected voters probably will be outnumbered on primary day by party faithful who turn out for DeLay, political scientist Cal Jillson of Southern Methodist University said. But if DeLay wins the primary by a narrow margin, Jillson said, it will hurt him as he heads into what is expected to be a tough November race against former U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson -- potentially the first Democratic opponent to pose a major threat to DeLay’s congressional career.

“If DeLay barely edges Campbell, there will be the sense that there’s blood in the water,” Jillson said. “It will dampen the enthusiasm of Republican contributors and juice up Lampson supporters.”

Lampson, a four-term congressman unseated when his district was redrawn under a controversial plan pushed through by DeLay in 2003, is running unopposed for his party’s nomination. If DeLay wins the primary, he will also face Steve Stockman, a former Republican congressman running as an independent.

“DeLay has embarrassed his district,” Jillson said. “People who reveled in his power and influence are now trying to decide if his continuation as a representative is sensible. I think it’s all still up in the air.”