Has Allen finally lost his mind?

Now there's a question that has returned from slightly more than one of the pickets along your humble observer's dead drop network.

Allen Blakemore, the once ubiquitous provider of an endless stream of Chronicled one-liners and sometimes toady to the apogee of scarlet womenry that springs to life in the conservative publishing world around the time of the Republican primary, seems to have finally lost it.

As our frequenters already know, it was Allen shouting "all aboard" for a recent train wreck amidst its self-directed launch off the cliff of Harris County politics in a manner unseen since Vernon Dalhart last whet his harmonica. In an apparent effort to top even his own display of maladroit extravagance, Allen arrived to provide his sage bookkeeping advice to Coach Jerry just in time for a friendly visit from the G-men.

This week brings word that Allen has embarked on a desperate retreat to the crumbling keep of his final political fiefdom: Senate District 17. Kyle Janek, de jure pretender to the duchy, fled District 17's hurricanes, petrochem plants, Bolivarian beach tar, Brazos river runoff, and other swampy mucks for the rolling hills of Austin last June (at least when he wasn't sunbathing with other professional cohorts beneath the lysol-factory illuminated skies of the Galveston bay).

Though concealed at first, Dr. Janek's emigration became a matter of public knowledge some six months ago. All that happened between then and now may be attributed to a simple crisis of lineage in the district. Allen needed a client, the good ole boys in Austin needed a successor who fell far from the tree of Dan Patrick, and Janek couldn't go until both objects were met. Early this week, Allen found his presumptive new Sheriff of Nottingham with a reputed identity of one Spencer Tillman. A message was prepared for the adoring press corp and on 1 PM Tuesday, a vacancy would be announced.

The night before, Kyle gathered his most(ly) loyal servants in the kitchen to inform them of his pending departure. All had been prepared and researched, he assured them. He would be resigning on March 10th, explicitly for the purpose of ensuring the seat would be filled in short order at the May uniform election date. And lest they be unsettled by this mid-term disruption, none other than Allen Blakemore was on hand to assure the working classes that he had a candidate..."but would not name him until Thursday."

Sounds pretty sly, right? Janek resigns effective March 10 on Tuesday, Blakemore rolls out a well known sports personality reputed to be Tillman on Thursday to instantly claim front-runner status, the Governor calls a quick and dirty election for May, and things are back to normal for the get-along crowd. The regnant regime is preserved, crisis averted, and Kyle gets to retire to a peaceful Austinite lobbying gig.

It was all fine and dandy except for one detail: in between all of his maneuvering, Allen Blakemore forgot to look up the heir apparent's street address. Come Tuesday morning and only hours away from the Janek press conference a legitimacy crisis had ensued. Kyle's Dauphin was ineligible under Texas law

To make matters worse for Allen and Kyle, another old rivalry was already brewing. They had only one option: push the resignation past June and buy Allen another half year to dredge up a client...all rendered necessary because Allen, between his propensity to climb aboard sinking vessels and his public bouts with Chuckled dementia, doesn't know how to use Mapquest (or read a voter registration card that plainly says Senate District 18 on it for that matter).