2010: A Theory About the Democrats and Waco

In addition to Mean Rachel Farris and Meaner Harold Cook tearing me a new one (I'm honored) over my post this morning about the Ds not putting up anyone for Kip Averitt's seat, I heard from one interested and in-the-know party who offered a very smart explanation for the absence of challenger in Senate District 22. The theory goes that if the Democrats had found some schlub to run against Averitt for the sake of doing so — which, admittedly, is what I was advocating for — they would have enabled Averitt to raise a ton of money to turn out the vote in a race he was going to win handily anyway. But the collateral damage would have been a heightened threat to U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, who is always looking over his shoulder: His congressional district is, after all, the most Republican one in the country represented by a Democrat, and antipathy there to the man Averitt's primary opponent refers to as "Barack Hussein Obama" doesn't make life easy for any Democratic incumbent. The last thing Edwards needed, my correspondent suggests, is a reason for Averitt to raise money that would indirectly help Edwards' Republican challenger.