The March party primaries are 28 weeks from now. Maybe that's not alarming to you, but it's on the minds of the people who'll be on the ballot then, and on the people -- statewide elected officials, mainly -- whose campaigns will start when the gavels mark the end of the legislative efforts on school finance. This session ends on Friday, August 19, and chances for another one are, at this writing, small. It would be early and somewhat unusual to start advertising in August of the year before the elections, but it's not unprecedented. Clayton Williams Jr. started his ads in August 1989 and by March had shouldered his way past six other Republicans (three were what you'd call major candidates) to win a primary without a runoff. Someone reminded us the other day that that run of commercials cost him $9 million. That amount was a record at the time, but it wouldn't last long in today's television markets: A week of saturation advertising on a statewide basis in Texas now costs roughly $1 million. If you get out a calendar and work backwards from Election Day, subtracting $1 million for each week, Gov. Rick Perry could start advertising in the first week of January. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who's running against him, could start a week or two later. If they start early, they're betting supporters with thick wallets and heavy purses will step forward to help them buy more ads. And lots of commercials don't make a Texan a governor. Williams lost in November, as did the next wealthy oil man to self-finance a campaign for that office: Tony Sanchez Jr., who ran against Perry in 2002. Whether they're on TV in a month, Perry and Strayhorn and the others will be in the papers, traveling the state and trying to drum up support. • Democrat Chris Bell of Houston will officially end his explorations and announce for governor over the weekend. The former congressman and Houston city councilman will be the first Democrat in the race. Separately, Bell was named to the board of StemPAC, a political action committee "created to fight back against those holding up the promise of stem cell research." • Kinky Friedman, trying to get on the ballot as an independent, announces Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin is joining the campaign as a "staff advisor." DeGuerin is a well-known criminal defense attorney; he defended U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison when a Travis County grand jury indicted her on charges she abused her office. She won a directed verdict after prosecutors lost a ruling on evidence and refused to present their case. 

Former Austin Mayor Kirk Watson left the law firm he founded to join the Austin office of Hughes & Luce. Watson, a Democrat who lost the 2002 attorney general race to Republican Greg Abbott, is considering a run for the Texas Senate seat now held by Gonzalo Barrientos, D-Austin. Jim Ray is rejoining Ray Associates after a run as executive director of the Texas Association of Regional Councils. Ray co-founded the public affairs firm in 1977, and he was the ED at the association for 28 years. Lisa Elledge is leaving the government affairs office at the Texas Department of Agriculture for the private sector; she'll be a lobbist for Wal-Mart Stores. Before working at TDA, she worked in Washington, D.C., including, at one time, for then-U.S. Rep. Larry Combest, R-Lubbock. Patrick Sullivan is the new deputy executive director at the Texas Building and Procurement Commission. His last gig was at the Texas State University System, where he worked in planning and construction. Ann Fuelberg, who heads the Employee Retirement System, won the "administrator of the year award" from the Texas Public Employees Association. Press Corps Moves: Deon Daugherty joins the Quorum Report, leaving the employ of Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, to return to reporting. She was the last Austin correspondent for Morris Newspapers, writing for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and the Amarillo Globe-News.