12.01.09
The latest in SD 5
Last we heard Dan Gattis was quitting his Senate campaign to “devote my full-time attention to my young, growing family” and Steve Ogden was eager to jump back in to a job, and a looming budget deficit, he never wanted to leave in the first place. But that doesn’t seem to be holding up. Via Brazos Valley Blog it seems like everything wasn’t quite lined up when Gattis decided to call it quits.
[T]he only problem is Ogden has said he doesn’t want the seat, or at least he didn’t want it back in September.
The rumors flying around the grapevine are that this is a squeeze move by the Republican Party to pressure Ogden to keep his seat and not take the chance of losing it to a Democrat. Anonymous sources in the Republican party have made it clear they would rather have Ogden running than an untested Gattis. Politics at its finest people. We will get finial word from Ogden sometime this week whether he is keeping his word and stepping down or if he will do a 180 and run again. You would think if this has been orchestrated, they would have had Gattis offer a better excuse for dropping out thereby making Ogden look good by stepping up to save the party seat.
Neither Gattis or Ogden is talking to the media. The Bryan-College Station Eagle is reporting that Ogden will share his election plans on Friday and has a comment from Ben Bius:
An aide to State Sen. Steve Ogden said he will have a statement later this week about his plans for the 2010 election, following a weekend shake-up in the race for his seat.
[...]
As of Monday, the only declared candidate was Huntsville businessman Ben Bius. Reached by phone on Monday, he said he doubted Ogden would enter the race.
“He doesn’t make decisions lightly and he is a very honorable man, and I am sure if he changed his mind he would have given me a call by now,” Bius said. “I think any rumor that he is going to change his mind is completely unfounded and baseless.”
Bius said the developments made him the overwhelming favorite for the senate seat. He declined to speculate on how an Ogden candidacy would affect his position.
News 8 has a article on the happenings in Williamson County.
Currently four Republicans are vying for the open House seat. No Democrats are on the ticket.
Williamson County Democrats are looking to put candidates on the District 20 ticket. But the Democratic base is building and county party representatives said a couple of potential candidates are getting closer to a campaign.
[...]
“I’m always worried,” [WCGOP Treasurer Jon] Jewett said. “That’s how I got into politics six years ago.”
Jewett said keeping strong Republican candidates coming will need to be a priority to remain red, especially if the county picks up another House seat after redistricting takes place in 2011.
Sen. Ogden’s office said he’ll make an announcement about his future later this week. The filing period for candidates begins Thursday.
It starting to look like Gattis, for whatever reason, was eager to get out of this race. But stories of Ogden having to be pressured into running by the Texas GOP sure call these statements into question:
Gattis said he and Ogden saw each other at a funeral a couple of weeks ago and that Gattis mentioned, half-kidding, that the race for the Senate was causing him to spend a lot of time away from work and family and that he may be willing to give up his campaign.
Ogden replied, “Dan, if you’re serious about that, we’ll talk.”
Gattis circled back with him within a couple of days, and Ogden said he only stepped out of the race because he made a promise to Gattis four years earlier that he would not run again. They also talked about the challenge of a multi-billion-dollar shortfall that the state will face in its 2011 legislative session, and Ogden, the current chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, expressed some interest in tackling it.
“I felt comfortable stepping out of the race only because I knew Steve Ogden was stepping back in,” Gattis said.
It would seem if this was all pre-planned that Ogden would have been ready with a statement on Monday. But the rumors and lack of response from Ogden only help fuel speculation that there may be something else going on here. It would certainly make Gattis look even worse if Ogden didn’t wind up running for Senate again. And if Ogden doesn’t run in SD 5 it would make this Senate seat up for grabs.