DeLay, Red Statesman

DeLay, Red Statesman

Interesting history of the Hammer:

In Gingrich's most pivotal internal House victory, his campaign in 1989 to succeed Dick Cheney as minority whip, DeLay was chief vote counter for Gingrich's opponent, Ed Madigan of Illinois. When DeLay was elected majority whip in 1995, it was at the expense of a close Gingrich ally, Robert Walker of Pennsylvania.

DeLay joined others much closer to Gingrich in the abortive effort to oust Gingrich in 1997, but unlike most of the others was able to maintain his standing in the House. Even so, he would have remained a cog in the machine (albeit an important one) had not both Gingrich and his chosen successor, Bob Livingston, resigned within weeks of each other a year later. That made possible the sudden elevation to speaker of a little-known DeLay deputy whip, Rep. Denny Hastert, and the Red State era of the House truly began in 1999.

Tom DeLay is a special target because he is the first legislative power broker to be an authentic Red State conservative. DeLay is the most important of a small but growing group of conservative leaders who are willing and able to operate without permission or praise from Blue State media. The fact that Hastert, DeLay, and their allies have maintained unbroken operational control of the House, never losing a significant floor vote in the four-plus years since Bush became president, has (to put it mildly) opened the door for other ambitious leaders to consider doing the same, either on selected issues or across the board.

Politics