During a one-on-one interview on the December 13 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto allowed former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) to repeat the common GOP claim that Democrats gained control of the House and Senate in the 2006 midterm elections by running conservative candidates -- or, as DeLay put it, “Republican-lites.” But as Media Matters for America has documented (here, here, and here), the Democratic candidates who, as of November 20, had won Republican-held seats in the November 7 midterm elections have all backed central issues in the Democratic platform -- raising the minimum wage, changing course in Iraq, and opposing any effort to privatize Social Security. These new Democrats also largely agree on the most contentious social issues of the day. Indeed, all but two of the 29 newly elected Democrats (as of November 20) support embryonic stem cell research and only five describe themselves as “pro-life” on the issue of abortion.

Since November 20, Ciro Rodriguez, the Democratic candidate for Texas' 23rd Congressional District seat, defeated incumbent Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla in a December 12 runoff election, increasing to 30 the number of House seats picked up by the Democrats this year. Rodriguez opposes efforts to privatize Social Security, supports raising the minimum wage, advocates changing course in Iraq, supports federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and supports “a woman's right to choose as established in the case of Roe v. Wade.”

During the December 13 interview, Cavuto did not bring up Rodriguez's victory a day earlier, despite the fact that it was widely seen as another reversal in DeLay's controversial redistricting efforts in Texas in 2003. Rodriguez entered the race after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the redrawn 23rd District violated the Voting Rights Act. A three-judge panel then remapped the district to include a greater number of Hispanic voters and scheduled a November 7 special election. Because Bonilla, the leading vote-getter on November 7, received less than a majority of the vote, he faced Rodriguez -- who garnered the second highest number of votes -- in the December 12 runoff. From a December 14 Washington Post article headlined "House Win Adds Insult to Injury for DeLay":

Former congressman Ciro Rodriguez's victory in a House runoff election Tuesday in Texas not only allowed Democrats to pick up their 30th seat of the 2006 elections but served as a final rebuke to one of the architects of the Republican House majority: Tom DeLay.

The former congressman from Texas was the mastermind of a 2003 redrawing of congressional lines in the state that led to the removal of six House Democrats in the 2004 elections.

Two years later, DeLay's fortunes have suffered a near-total reversal, as the redistricting map that once seemed certain to cement his legacy and GOP majorities for years has instead led to the end of that career and may well be a building block for a reenergized Democratic Party in the state.

[...]

The Supreme Court struck another blow to DeLay when it ruled that portions of the map he devised were in violation of the Voting Rights Act. That decision forced the redrawing of Bonilla's district to include thousands more Hispanic voters.

Even so, Bonilla nearly avoided a runoff when he won 49 percent of the vote on Nov. 7. Six Democrats and an independent split the remainder, with Rodriguez, who had held the neighboring 28th District from 1996 until 2004, leading the pack with 20 percent.

From the December 13 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:

CAVUTO: All right. We hope, as well. Congressman, let me ask it a little bit about some -- speaking of politics -- news that you raised a couple of days ago, saying Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. Were you taken out of context? Or did you mean that?

DeLAY: Well, the headlines didn't explain what I was talking about. What I was talking about was, there -- there's a reason why a minority party, the Democrat [sic] Party, with no agenda, with trying to hide that they're liberal, running as Republican-lites, won the majorities in the House and Senate this year.

And I -- one of the reasons is a very -- very important reason, and that is, the Clintonistas, the people that were the hit people in the White House for Bill Clinton -- Harold Ickes, Morton Halperin, Sidney Blumenthal, Cargill [sic: James Carville], [Paul] Begala -- and I could go on and on and on -- didn't go away. They left the White House, and they put together, over the last six years, one of the most massive coalitions that I have ever witnessed. And I congratulate them. It's -- it's -- it's a political -- an effective political machine that they have put together.

CAVUTO: Yeah, but then along comes this guy Barack Obama out of nowhere. How does that machine deal with him?

DeLAY: Well, he could be groomed by them to be vice president. But Barack Obama is a creation of the national media. He's the media's guy. And -- and, when you really look at how leftist he is, he won't last six months. The point is, is that Hillary Clinton has this massive organization that's capable of raising millions upon tens of millions of dollars to support her, and nobody else has it.

CAVUTO: Yeah, but, you know, normally -- and you're better at this political stuff than I'll ever be, Tom -- but I -- I always wonder, when a party trips over itself for a new name, that it's saying something about the names that are already out there.

DeLAY: No, I don't think so. I -- I'm -- I'm -- as you're right -- you're right, Neil. I am a great believer in organization and hard work and persistence and energy -- drive the politics in -- in America. But if you -- if you read the book Shadow Party by David Horowitz, or go to discoverthenetwork.org, you see how massive this organization is. And it's all connected, all very well coordinated.

And no one else has that, including the Republicans. And if the Republicans don't get up and start articulating a vision for the future and put together coalitions and bring people together and build something close to what the Clintons have, she'll be the next president.

CAVUTO: Yeah, but money and organization doesn't buy you a seat at the table. Your old colleague and friend [former Sen.] Phil Gramm [R-TX] had a lot of money running for president [in 1996] and all of that, and it didn't really -- didn't really do much for him. Another old friend of yours, [Former Texas Gov.] John Connally, years back, had the same thing.

DeLAY: All they had --

CAVUTO: Didn't do much for --

DeLAY: -- all they had was money, Neil. They had no organization. They had no groups. I'm talking about hundreds of organized groups and companies -- groups that have come together. When they needed something, like opposition research, they went out and created a new group. Americans Coming Together, for instance, has 1,400 full-time employees that are the people that are on the ground going door-to-door with their Palm Pilots.

CAVUTO: All right. So, they --

DeLAY: That's -- that's powerful stuff.

CAVUTO: -- she's got the organization. So, very, very quickly, tell your Republican colleagues and friends how they can stop that.

DeLAY: What they can stop that is, quit -- forget the election and let's go kick some butt. Let's start working together and quit pointing the finger at each other. We -- ideas are on our side. The American people on our side. Most Americans in this country are to the right of center. What we need are leaders, and leaders pulling people together to work together, and we will win. That's -- that's why we have been in the majority for the last 12 to 15 years.

CAVUTO: All right, Tom DeLay, thank you for addressing this and all the breaking news. Appreciate it, as always.

DeLAY: My pleasure.