Those Texas LP House Races…
Even as MS an M as the Washington Post is a Reliable Source when it comes to maverick politicos from the Libertarian Party: with 13 percent in, moneybags LP candidate Michael Badnarik is at 4 percent in district 10; while in district 22, where, because of the DeLay resignation kerfuffle, there is only Democrat Nick Lampson and Libertarian Bob Smither on the ballot, Smither is, with 11 percent of precincts reporting, pulling 6 percent–with GOP write in Shelley Sekula-Gibbs at 30 percent.
For reasons way too complicated to get into, there is a simultaneous special election going on today to fill DeLay's old seat merely until the winner in the real election today is sworn in in late January, in which Sekula-Gibbs is on the ballot (and Dem Lampson, to make it even more confusing, is not–so Smither is second place in that one). She's winning that handily.
There were flurries of talk in LP circles that Sekula-Gibbs might be reluctant to give up her Houston City Council seat, which she will have to do, just to be a congresswoman for 2 months. Her press representative Lisa Dimond assured me this evening that Sekula-Gibbs intends to take the seat, even if only for the two months.