The Touch of Death (I Hope)

The moral of this story is: Whatever you do, do not let George W. Bush touch you.

There's a big political fight occurring in Texas right now. This Newsweek article will fill you in on the details. In a nutshell, a March 7th Texas congressional primary between Democrats Henry Cuellar and Ciro Rodriguez will decide who gets the seat, because there will be no Republican running against the winner.

Cuellar, the incumbent, beat out Rodriguez, the ex-incumbent, in the primary two years ago. There's some bad blood between the two candidates right now, and for good reason:

The story begins in 2002, when Cuellar ran against Republican congressman Henry Bonilla. During that race, he received significant help from Rodriguez, then the congressman from San Antonio, who wanted to see the Democrats pick up Bonilla’s seat. But after Cuellar narrowly lost, and after Texas Republicans -- in their controversial redistricting plan a year later -- reconfigured Rodriguez’s district to include Cuellar’s hometown of Laredo, Texas, Cuellar did what some thought was an act of betrayal: He challenged Rodriguez for his seat in the 2004 primary, and won. (Cuellar went on to defeat his Republican opponent in the general election, 59-39 percent.)

Things started getting really interesting at last week's State of the Union address. Instead of sitting on the Democratic side during the speech, Cuellar decided to sit on the Republican side. But that ain't all that happened at the State of the Union (from he above-linked Newsweek article):

More recently, Cuellar made some Democrats furious when a photo was published showing President Bush grabbing Cuellar’s cheeks at the State of the Union. After liberal blogs posted the photo, Rodriguez’s campaign has raked in the cash, more than $70,000 from online donors, according to ActBlue, a Democratic online clearinghouse.

"He has pissed off every single Democrat [in Washington]," Rodriguez said in an interview. In fact, campaign-finance records show that at least 10 current members of Congress have donated to Rodriguez’s campaign, while not a single one has given to the incumbent Cuellar. "That never happens," Rodriguez added.

Anyway, it should be a good fight. And if Rodriguez manages to pull out an upset in this one, we'll have George W. Bush to thank for it.