Pretend Rep. Leaves Hill, Nation Mourns
Pretend Rep Clearly Beloved by Constituency
Sekula-Gibbs has much to say: As brief stint winds down, she leaves her mark with votes and speeches
While she will run again in 2008, not even Texas Republicans will ever allow her the nomination. Texas’ 22nd district has lost a passionate, totally unbalanced voice.
I’m going to miss Shelley Sekula-Gibbs…in a sick, twisted sort of way. Her reign of error on Houston’s City Council really didn’t do justice to her unbridled, unaffected looniness. No, she really needed a larger stage…and in Congress she had it…not that anyone outside of Houston or Washington was paying attention. Most politicians who knew they would be occupying a Congressional seat for all of 2-3 weeks would be cognizant of the reality that they simply wouldn’t have enough time to remake the world in their image. Not Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. She arrived in Washington traveling full-bore, shooting from the lips, and so convinced of her complete and total moral rectitude that she actually seemed to think that official Washington cared about her for anything besides entertainment value.
Siwwy wabbit….
Sekula-Gibbs arrived in Washington clueless, arrogant, and built to stay that way. She’d been in town all of about five minutes when she managed to completely alienate the staff of former thugocrat Tom DeLay. “Hello, how are you? I’m in charge…STFU!” A little bit of charm and grace goes a long way, no? Too bad Sekula-Gibbs has never managed to figure that one out.
WASHINGTON — She marched into Congress determined to help cut taxes and reform immigration despite the fact that she was only serving out a lame-duck term.
But after two weeks of legislative business on Capitol Hill, Rep. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs learned what being a lame duck really means: She could give speeches but not deliver all of the goods.
The Houston Republican spent the past week — Friday was her last official day on the Hill — delivering one speech after another on the House floor.
Her soliloquies, aimed at the House television camera as the chamber was virtually deserted, could have been judged plentiful even in a place where performance art often passes for good politics.
Beside casting one of the 367 votes in favor of a tax bill that would, among other things, extend the sales-tax deduction on itemized federal income tax returns for Texans and residents of six other states, Sekula-Gibbs leaves a legacy mainly of C-SPAN video.
There’s a method to her madness. Two years from now, when she once again runs for the CD22 seat, she can use these videos to convince the sheeple who reflexively vote Republican here that she actually “did something” during her sojourn in the halls of Congress. You can count on seeing the C-SPAN video footage endlessly on Houston-area TV stations during the 2008 campaign as she attempts to convince the “faithful” that she was a serious Congresswoman. Played down, if it’s mentioned at all, will be the reality that she was in office barely long enough to learn where the ladies’ room in the Capitol building is.
The 2008 CD22 campaign is shaping up as one where effective Republican propaganda management will be key. Being the traditionally Republican stronghold it’s been for more than 20 years, the GOP will no doubt see the retaking of CD22 as key to their strategy to recover their majority in Congress. If Sekula-Gibbs is once again their nominee- and based on her recent performance, that’s no guarantee- the campaign will be one of dueling sound bites. Democrats will be portraying Sekula-Gibbs (not inaccurately) as “Crazy Shelley, the Human Wrecking Ball”, while Republicans will be flogging the archived C-SPAN video footage to portray her as a serious politician with a grasp of the issues and the gravitas necessary to make a difference for Texas in Congress.
I can hardly wait….
