Tom Craddick: Dead or Alive?

By Matt Pulle | Friday, November 14th, 2008

Well, I suppose one great post deserves another:

Yesterday, we wrote about Burnt Orange Report’s incisive take that Tom Craddick is done as speaker.

Today, Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka responds: 

“This is the big fallacy of the BOR analysis: It is based upon anti-Craddick votes. But the only way to beat Craddick is for somebody else to get more votes. Sooner or later, the insurgency must settle on a candidate to oppose Craddick. Who is that person going to be?”

Recently I spoke to Rep. Delwin Jones, a Republican out of Lubbock, who has filed to run for speaker. He told me that he wants to succeed Craddick to restore a sense of fairness and order to the legislative process. It all sounds peachy. Here are a few of his comments: 

“I think the speaker’s responsibility is to preside over the legislature and let the committee’s functions instead of having the power rest in the speaker.”

 “There’s too much single person power and that’s what we have had over the last few years.”

“There is too much concentration of power; committee chairs were not able to function like they are supposed to.”

 “The general word was that if he (Craddick) didn’t give his approval, legislation wouldn’t come out of committee; this wasn’t written down but that was the atmosphere we operated under.”

Unless you believe that a democratic body should be run as secretively and vindictively as possible, it’s hard to argue with what Jones is saying. But you don’t always win an election off your intellectual honesty or your commitment to fairness. Sometimes you need to bite and brawl, make deals in back rooms and promise vengeance on those who cross you.

 In other words, act like the guy you want to take out. 

Is Jones ready to wage that kind of fight?

“I haven’t asked for any pledges yet, ” he says. “I want the membership to vote for me because I’m their choice, not because I coerced them or someone has coerced them for me.”

OK. Good luck with all that. I think if you’re going to beat Craddick, no matter what your party, it can’t be off the strength of your principles. It has to be off your strength.