The race is on: Who will not be my congressman?

You have no doubt heard the old expression: “Thank God for small favors.”

Well, one may thank whomever they choose in this country but I am thankful this afternoon to Republican Congressman Ron Paul. You see, Paul announced today he would not seek re-election to the U.S. House, where he has held a seat for 24 years. Why am I thanking Paul? I thank him because our GOP-infested Texas Legislature drew a map to redistrict Rep. Paul’s congressional district right into my very own Jefferson County, Texas. That meant Paul would have likely been my congressman beginning in 2013 provided he failed to win the GOP nomination or a third-party bid for president. Even though Paul maintains he quit his current day job as a lawmaker — the 75-year-old is a medical doctor and was a practicing OB/GYN — to concentrate on his presidential run there would have been a very good chance he would be returning to Congress.

Some folks are skeptical that Paul got out of the congressional race to concentrate on a run for president. First of all, Paul has been down this road before. He ran in 1988 as a Libertarian candidate for president. He came in third with 0.5% of the popular vote behind George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis.

In 2008 Paul sought the Republican nomination, which he did not get. You may remember the controversy over his newsletter that was supposedly ghost written, containing a number of racially-tinged comments around the time of that presidential run.

A number of talking heads suggest that Paul is intelligent enough to know that there is no way in Hell he could ever win the GOP nomination, or another third-party try for that matter. Paul is instead in the race for as long as he can afford to do so in order to have his message heard. Anyone who has studied political science, or even paid attention in high school government classes for that matter, knows most third-party or long-shot candidates for president run to make a particular point of view heard. Paul has a loyal following and is dubbed by some as the “Father of the Tea Party.” That alone is reason enough for my thanking Congressman Paul for his service, both in the military as a flight surgeon and as an elected official, but most of all for his decision not to run for what would be my member of Congress.

Others out there believe the redistricting job was meant to derail Paul’s chances of returning to office. A post on a Website titled “The Daily Paul” said the Texas Legislature added about 300,000 votes to the new congressional district including my county and part of Galveston County so that Paul would find less voting age Anglos as well as more Hispanics and Blacks.

Nevertheless, Paul won’t be my new congressman and unless something changes with a judicial review of the new districts, neither will Rep. Ted Poe continue to be my old U.S. House member.

Now I must say that if the race for my congressional member was between Paul and Poe, I’d pick Paul. I’ve had Poe for however long now. At least Paul might get something done for his district unlike Poe, who spends his time waiting for an appearance on one of the right-wing Fox News shows. Wait, is that a redundancy? Otherwise you can find Poe on the border trying shoo the Mexicans away.

The question is, who will run the race for Congress in our district? Will some new Republican emerge from the Brazosport area or perhaps even one from Galveston or Beaumont? Beaumont has long had a Yellow Dog Democrat streak, pushed along by a large organized labor population. A lot of that has, unfortunately, changed. There are capable Democrats right here in Jefferson County who could dip into that pool of wealthy trial lawyer moolah that exists in an area in which the judicial reform types have called “A Judicial Hellhole.” Such wealth couldn’t hurt any candidate for Congress in our neck of the woods. I have asked before why no real Democrat challenge against Poe was organized during the last election. I have yet to get an answer. Poe’s only opponent in 2010 was a Libertarian.

One of the names that immediately pops up as a possible Democratic candidate is former U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson. The former Jefferson County Tax Assessor-Collector lost out during the anti-Democrat sweep during the past election when Lampson ran for the seat vacated by convicted former House GOP kingpin Tom DeLay. Another Democrat name I heard mentioned today was former Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith. There are other pols who could make a run, former Dem State Sen. David Bernsen, for one. Current Texas legislators, Democrat Rep. Joe Deshotel is a name to float, and since he became a turncoat last year, I guess you could also mention former Democrat-turned GOP Texas House Rep. Allan Ritter.

I have no idea the breadth of Democrat or GOP “talent” which lies in the new congressional district in counties such as Brazoria and Galveston.  But if the congressional district holds up to judicial review we might see ourselves with a good-old Southeast Texas “whoop ass” which is something we haven”t seen in a long time in our area U.S. House races. Whomever it might be who ultimately ends up as my congressman, all I hope — whether the lawmaker is a “D” or a “R” — is that the person is a better representative than Ron Paul and Ted Poe.That, of course, isn’t a very high bar I realize.

For now, today at least, I  can say: “Yippie-yi-yay!”