Five years ago, Tom DeLay redistricted Texas to maximize Republican House seats.  The idea was simple: if you had 10 seats, and the overall split was 60/40, then normally the party would expect to get 6 seats.  But if you gerrymandered every district so that each one had a 60/40 split, you'd get all of them!  DeLay wasn't quite that successful (his unprecedented mid-decade redistricting changed the split from 17 Democrats, 15 Republicans, to 21 Republicans, 11 Democrats), but one of the districts he took was the 10th Congressional.  With his handpicked successor, Michael McCaul taking the reins, he was to have the seat for his entire life.  Until Texas Democratic Party Boyd Richie had an idea...

 

That's right, get a man who plays a judge on television to run.  There are so many things I love about this image that I can't list them all here, but for one just notice in the bottom right how he carefully displays the cowboy boots under his robe.  In case you didn't think the show was Texan enough otherwise.  Keep in mind Larry Joe is not an actual judge, although he is a successful lawyer.  Now the 10th stretches from northeast Houston all the way to Austin.  Yes, that's over 200 miles.  The idea was to siphon some of the cities off and dilute them in the huge red waste that is the area between the two. 

Larry Joe is thus the perfect candidate to run as a Democrat.  Hipsters in Austin (everyone who lives in Austin) will vote for him ironically, rural TV fans will vote for him sincerely, and minorities in Houston will vote straight ticket anyway because the state Republican party is hella racist.  Seriously, check the Texan platform, it's way crazier than the national platform.  He's also rich from his TV show, so has dumped his own money into the race!

As a 501(c) nonprofit*, ObscureCraft does not actually endorse candidates.  But we do endorse watching daytime court TV, so you do the math.

 

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