I know that this article was already posted but I think that quote is too good to let slide!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2575-2005Mar2_2.html
Article Below:
washingtonpost.com
DeLay Moves To Protect His Political Base Back in Texas
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 3, 2005; Page A01
SUGAR LAND, Tex. -- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), struggling to protect his Washington power base as legal and ethical issues fester, also has to watch his back on the home front.
Though the change has received little notice, DeLay's strength in his suburban Houston congressional district of strip malls and housing developments has eroded considerably -- forcing him to renew his focus on protecting his seat.
DeLay garnered 55 percent of the vote in the November election against a relatively unknown Democrat, an unusually modest showing for a veteran House member who is one of the most powerful politicians in Washington. Some Republican officials and DeLay supporters worry that with President Bush absent from the top of the ticket next year, liberal interest groups might target the conservative majority leader and spend millions of dollars on campaign ads to try to defeat him.
The outspoken and hard-charging DeLay, 57, got into trouble last year when the House ethics committee admonished him three times and three of his Texas associates were indicted by a Travis County grand jury on charges of illegal fundraising related to a controversial redistricting plan that DeLay helped push through the state legislature. Testimony began this week in a civil case brought in Austin by five Democrats who allege that a political action committee begun by DeLay improperly spent about $600,000 in corporate contributions to implement the plan and unseat them.
House Republican leaders responded to DeLay's problems by changing rules and tightening their control over the ethics committee, to discourage future cases against DeLay and other GOP members. National conservative groups rallied to DeLay's side. DeLay has denied any wrongdoing.
But DeLay now has to worry about "Texas 22," the congressional district he has represented for the past 21 years in the U.S. House. Ironically, the Texas redistricting plan he engineered over strong Democratic objections drained some vital Republican support and could make it tougher for him to win reelection. In his old district, DeLay took 60 percent of the vote in 2000 and 63 percent in 2002.
In 2003, at DeLay's behest, the Texas legislature redrew the state's congressional lines without waiting for the next census (in 2010), the customary occasion for redistricting. With the new districts, which still face court challenges, Texas elected five additional Republicans to the U.S. House last November, accounting for all of the party's net gain.
DeLay's new district wound up several percentage points less Republican than his previous one, and it has a substantial and growing Asian American population.
"When you're drawing the lines, you have to set the example," DeLay explained late last week as he traveled his district during the Presidents' Day recess. "If you're going to maximize the number of Republicans that are elected, everybody can't have an 80 percent district. If you're the guy that's sort of leading the effort, you can't tell your members, 'Well, I'm going to dilute yours, but I'm going to pack mine.' "
"In doing all that, we tried to be as fair to everybody as possible," he added. "And I had to take my hit, too."
So when the House is tackling what DeLay calls the most ambitious agenda since Republicans took control a decade ago, he has to worry about getting face time with local officials and with business owners who turn out for Chamber of Commerce dinners in the 30 percent of his district that is new.
Democrats are chortling about his possible weakness. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he is happy that DeLay is "meeting some real people instead of just K Street lobbyists."
"Maybe he'll find out the people actually like Social Security," Emanuel said.
In January, DeLay shook up his team of political consultants. He signed on Sam Dawson, who was a top political aide to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and helped devise the Republican strategy for taking over the House in 1994. Dawson will serve as his general consultant and media strategist.
The majority leader is also opening a second office this spring, in his new territory of Webster.
DeLay is getting to know his new constituents in places such as Clear Lake, Pasadena and League City at a time when he is being bombarded with unwelcome attention and damaging publicity. Lesley Stahl of CBS's "60 Minutes" questioned DeLay about legal issues last month when he was trying to talk about tsunami relief, and she interviewed Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who is conducting the grand jury that indicted DeLay's three associates.
Last week, the National Journal reported that DeLay, his wife, Christine, and close aides had traveled the world with Jack Abramoff, who once was one of the Republican Party's most powerful lobbyists and now is facing criminal and congressional investigations for millions of dollars in fees he received from casino-operating Indian tribes seeking to influence the federal government. The magazine reported that the National Center for Public Policy Research, which had Abramoff as a board member, paid for DeLay's trips in 2000 to Scotland and London, where he stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel, and to Russia in 1997.
DeLay's staff said he reported the trips on his financial disclosure forms and did work at each stop, meeting with former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, speaking to Scotland's Conservative Caucus and pushing for religious freedom in Moscow.
The congressman, asked about the trips in a meeting with reporters Tuesday, said: "We reported that in the travel disclosure form, as we are supposed to do." He said the group "paid for the trip and we disclosed it, like we are supposed to do."
DeLay asserts that here in Sugar Land, a former plantation that became a company town for sugar growers and refiners, none of that matters anyway. This is the area where he ran a pest-control business before being elected to the Texas House in 1978 on a platform of cutting taxes and regulations.
"People walk up to me," DeLay said, "and say, 'Well, it looks like they're after you again. You hang in there. We know who you are. We know what you're trying to do, and you're doing the right things. We're with you. We're praying for you. Just keep at it.' That makes me feel good. That's why I love coming home every week, because I get out of Washington, D.C., and come down to real people that know what I'm trying to do."
Here, DeLay is the guy who lives in the $400,000 cookie-cutter brick house, has two fluffy white lap dogs and keeps an office with the understated sign "Tom DeLay, Member of Congress."
Houston Mayor Bill White, former chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said DeLay was "ruthless" on redistricting but has been cooperative in getting money for the area and has moved to make amends with corporate leaders he alienated with his opposition to funding for light rail instead of buses.
Indeed, DeLay is greeted as a sugar daddy almost everywhere he goes here. During a symposium DeLay attended last week at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, he was repeatedly saluted in the speeches and PowerPoint presentations for the federal funds he had helped arrange for the school's Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness, which bills itself as "improving our nation's health security."
Edd Hendee, who owns the Taste of Texas restaurant in Houston, teaches a Bible study class that DeLay attends at a local Baptist church, and said the other members love to tease the big shot. "Like they'll have the top 10 reasons not to be late to class: 'You don't want to walk in with Congressman DeLay and have his two thugs frisk you outside,' " Hendee said. "It's a hoot. He'll shoot back something like, 'I can arrange a private frisking for you.' "
Richard Morrison, a lawyer and environmentalist who was DeLay's opponent in November, has begun raising money online to run again, using the slogan "real Texas values."
And DeLay is working his district like a freshman. One night last week he took the microphone at the Sugar Land Exchange Club spaghetti cook-off and, joshing about fast-talking politicians who want to take your money, spent 11 minutes auctioning a charity golf package and two other lots.
"I've got $650," he chanted, showing off skills he says he learned in a correspondence course more than 25 years ago. "Make it a seven. $700? $700. Seven and a half? Whoa! Seven and a half. New blood! Thank you. It's a steal for seven and a half. You got it, sir. It's all yours. $750!"