Coats finding it lonely in this closet

Gromer Jeffers, the ace political reporter for the Dallas Morning News, is reporting that Sam Coats, who ran a populist campaign for Dallas mayor two years ago, is abandoning his quest to run in the Democratic Party's primary for Dallas County Judge. Coats apparently told Jeffers he was calling a halt to his campaign because he wasn't "passionate about having to be a politician for the next almost 18 months of the campaign."

Let's be honest here. That's not the reason he's dropping out. The real reason can be found later in the story after Jeffers said the others still in race are civil lawyer Clay Jenkins, Dallas County Schools president Larry Duncan and incumbent Jim Foster. The key sentence in Jeffers's story is "Most top Democratic officials have abandoned Foster's reelection bid in favor of Jenkins."

Coats dropped out because he saw he wasn't going to get the support he needed to be successful.