Tom DeLay faces a surprisingly strong primary challenge.

Here's to a a good battle in the Republican primary and to Campbell for doing a heck of a job of getting his yard signs out front and center.

DeLay's incumbency, and Tom Campbell's challenge, raise two questions about our contemporary politics. One concerns the ethical standard to which voters hold their representatives, and asks whether all accusations of unseemliness can be written off as mere partisan attacks. The other concerns the nature of today's GOP, and asks whether the party has lost its reformist bearings and sidled too close to special interests.

"Principle is more important than power," Tom Campbell told me. "Mr. DeLay has gone to K Street and exchanged our principle for power. He's bartered. When you sell principle for short-term victories, you lose in two ways. Your short-term victories fall apart, and you set a horrible example for the next generation. We can choose power and lose power, or we can choose principle and maintain power."

He spoke quietly. "You don't beat an incumbent," he said. "An incumbent falls under his own weight." - Matthew Continetti

Now this is no friggin' joke. Campbell will also run against Stonewall Jackson, Lyndon Baines Johnson and a World War I lieutenant who led his men out of a trench into battle and is "willing to have a target on front and back saying, 'shoot me first.'"