The political air is different in sixteen legislative districts: Republicans win statewide races, but Democrats dominate in legislative contests.

A reader with a talent for numbers noticed something in an election chart that ran here last week, showing how statewide elections came out in each of the legislative districts in 2004 and 2006, and how that compared with the legislative results.

Democrats and Republicans in the middle of the ballot don't get the same results they get at the top of the ballot. Republican statewides win in districts where their legislators can't hold on; Democrats win in legislative districts where their statewide candidates can't sell ice cream on hot days.

We were trying to get a bead on what voters did the last couple of times they went to the polls, comparing the results from average statewide races to outcomes in the House, the Senate, and the state's congressional delegation.

The idea was to find districts that might be targets for parties in next year's elections.

We created what we called the Texas Weekly Index, averaging the percentage results for statewide Republicans and Democrats in the last two election cycles and subtracting the Republican average from the Democratic average. We only included races that had a candidate from each of those parties to avoid skewing the results with uncontested and mildly contested races. That gives you an average margin of victory, and we hoped, a snapshot of the partisan environment during those elections in each of those districts.

We stumbled into something. Democrats running for statehouse seats usually win in districts where statewide Republicans win, if the Texas Weekly Index is under 16. The whole chart is in our Files section, but if you look at the middle of the Texas House list, at the point where results go from Republican Red to Democratic Blue, you'll see what that reader saw: Democrats won in a bunch of districts that you'd suppose — based on what happened at the top of the ballot — would have gone to the GOP.

What's up with that?

We found three theories, all half-baked, but all worth noting.

First, Texas ballots have for years been redder at the top and bluer at the bottom. Even as Republicans started winning statewide races, the local county races in many parts of Texas remained Democratic turf. It's got some historical basis, but note the two Houstonians in the middle of the list: Democrats Ellen Cohen and Hubert Vo won in Harris County, where all the local county officials are Republicans.

Theory two is that the Republican statewides outperformed the local Republicans. Or that Democrats, with their relatively weak statewide ballots in '04 and '06, underperformed.

Behind Door Number Three is the theory that legislative races are just different, and that the indexes need calibrating if you're trying to translate statewide results into a measure of partisan terrain in legislative contests.

Sixteen House districts have Republican TWIs under 16 points. Three of those are held by Republicans, two of whom knocked off Republican incumbents in 2006. The third, Rep. Pat Haggerty of El Paso, has been targeted in the past by his own party as a renegade (there are indications they're after him again).

Meanwhile, eight of the 13 Democrats in those seats beat incumbent Republicans to get to the statehouse.

Democrats looking for targets are pushing their way up. Some of the Republicans near the red-blue line had close races last year — people like Mike Krusee of Round Rock, Bill Zedler of Arlington, and Tony Goolsby of Dallas — and are probably on the Democrats' shopping list for next year.

The GOP's strategists, meanwhile, aren't buying the theories. They'll target the blue reps in the districts where statewide Republicans have done well, although that strategy hasn't produced results since their party won its House majority after redistricting.

Take our latest crackpot theory to the Senate and Congressional results from the last elections. Senators line up with the statewides on the TWI. No Republicans are in districts with Democratic TWI results. No Democrats won in districts with Republican TWIs. Two Republican incumbents — Kim Brimer of Fort Worth and Kyle Janek of Houston — are below the 16 percent mark. Brimer already has a Democratic opponent (though nothing's official until the end-of-year filing deadline).

In the congressional delegation, no Republican names appear below the 16 percent line. Two Democrats are above it, though. U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, is a biennial target of the GOP. The standard line — in case you need it at a party or lunch — is that he's the congressional Democrat with the most Republican district in the U.S. The district also includes the president's Texas residence in Crawford, a particularly irksome detail for Republicans.

The other is Nick Lampson of Stafford, a former congressman who won the election to replace former U.S. Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land. Republicans are lining up for that race, and he'll have a serious challenge. The TWI there is 22.7 — that's the number of percentage points separating the average Republican and Democratic statewides in the last two election cycles.

The Hair on Their Chinny-Chin Chins

Just another thing to fear if you're an officeholder: Small margins. Legislative candidates who barely got in last time often get challenged next time.

And you can ignore a lot of the results from other races. Close contests have their own microclimates.

Texas Democrats, in particular, suffer from small margins — they're more likely to represent areas where people don't vote. A challenger who locates new voters can turn a race around. That's part of what happened to then-Appropriations Chairman Talmadge Heflin in 2004, when Democrat Hubert Vo upset him. The final margin was teensy, but turnout nearly doubled. Heflin, running unopposed in 2000, got 22,707 votes. Four years later, in another election with a presidential race at the top, he and Vo together attracted 41,357 votes (we skipped 2002, a non-presidential election, because presidential races affect turnout).

U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, has the district with the lowest number of voters in 2006: 50,550. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, represents a district where 215,510 people voted in November — more than four times the turnout in Green's district.

That's even more pronounced in the state Senate, where Houston Democrat Mario Gallegos' district had 51,780 voters show up last November (he wasn't on the ballot). The central Texas district represented by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, saw 227,825 voters show up in November.

Those same areas produced the highs and lows in the Texas House. Only 6,168 voters pulled the lever last November in Democratic Rep. Kevin Bailey's Houston race. Seven times that many — 56,601 voters — turned out to reelect Frank Corte, R-San Antonio.

A candidate with 25,276 votes could have beat Green. It would have taken 107,756 to beat Smith. Bailey — who's already got a Democratic opponent — could have lost in 2006 to someone with 3,085 votes. It would take 28,301 to beat Corte.

Candidates who survive close calls in districts with a lot of votes have a different problem. A small percentage change can turn an incumbent into a retiree. In a low turnout district, finding 500 new votes can be difficult but fruitful. In a high turnout district, changing the minds of a small percentage of voters can produce an upset.

All that's a way of saying margins are another way to target potential weaknesses among incumbents. Sixteen House races were won with less than 55 percent of the general election vote last year — 12 of them by Democrats (Republicans Mike Krusee, Bill Zedler, Tony Goolsby, Kirk England; Democrats Chuck Hopson, Robby Cook, Juan Garcia, Solomon Ortiz Jr., Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles, Valinda Bolton, Joe Heflin, Paula Hightower Pierson, Allen Vaught, Joe Farias, Ellen Cohen, and Hubert Vo).

Six members of the Texas House got less than 50 percent of the general election vote and, because third parties were in the mix, still won (Cook, Garcia, Heflin, Pierson, England, and Farias). And six in the group — not the same six — got in with 900 or fewer votes to spare (Hopson, Cook, Garcia, Heflin, Pierson, England, and Farias).

Two Democratic state reps won primaries by less than four percentage points (Eddie Lucio III and Barbara Mallory Caraway). And eight Republicans who made it to the House got less than 55 percent of their primary vote (Betty Brown, Leo Berman, Larry Phillips, Nathan Macias, Pat Haggerty, Kelly Hancock, Charlie Geren, Thomas Latham, and Patricia Harless).

Candidates in Waiting

Anna Mowery quit the Legislature early. Gov. Rick Perry called a November 6 special election. Now the filing deadline has passed, and here are the names Fort Worth voters will see on the HD-97 ballot:

Dan Barrett, an attorney and the only Democrat in the race; insurance salesman Craig Goldman; Chris Hatch, a CPA; Jeff Humber, who works for a health insurer; attorney Bob Leonard, who held the House seat before Mowery did; James Dean Schull, an attorney; and Dr. Mark Shelton, a pediatrician. The winner of that election will serve until the first days of 2009; the winner of next year's elections gets it then.

• Appellate Judge Linda Yañez of McAllen will run for the Texas Supreme Court seat held now by Republican Phil Johnson of Amarillo. She's the Senior Justice on the state's 13th Court of Appeals and said in her announcement that "could no longer turn a blind eye to the extreme right wing judicial activism of our state's highest court." Another judge — Susan Criss of Galveston — is running for that same seat. Both women are Democrats.

• Greg Myers, a Houston ISD trustee, will run against Rep. Hubert Vo, D-Houston, trying to put HD-149 back in the Republican column. Myers' HISD district overlaps about a fourth of the House district, so he's already talked to at least some of the voters. He's hired the Austin-based Patriot Group to consult on that campaign.

• Wade Gent apparently wants a rematch with Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell, in HD-4. Gent, whose dad is Kaufman County Judge Wayne Gent, lost to Brown by 578 votes — of 11,534 cast — in last year's Republican primary. He's a lawyer and lives in Forney.

• Rumor has Dee Margo — the Republican who lost a state Senate race last year to Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso — considering a challenge to state Rep. Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso. Haggerty generally votes with the folks who don't want House Speaker Tom Craddick to get another two years in the corner office. But Craddick's strength in El Paso is tenuous; some Republicans there who might otherwise support him — and oppose Haggerty — felt mistreated when Craddick slowed funding for a local expansion of Texas Tech University's medical school.

• Add a Pearland City Council member — Felicia Kyle — to the list of tire-kickers looking at Rep. Mike O'Day's seat. O'Day came to office after a special election in January but says he won't seek a full term in the Texas House. Randy Weber lost that special election and was the first candidate to jump into the replacement race. Kyle is a lawyer, and will have to give up her council seat if and when she becomes a candidate for the House.

• Congressional candidate Quico Canseco, who's challenging U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, picked up an endorsement from Roy Barrera Jr., the former judge and county GOP chairman... State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, put a large-scale fundraiser together, trying to pack a crowd into the Salt Lick, a popular barbecue spot outside of Austin. The headliner is Lance Armstrong... and U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega got an endorsement from the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters.

• Start with a big idea: A Republican presidential straw poll for Texas. Schedule it on the front end of the last-blast holiday weekend of the summer, Labor Day. Watch the Legislature pull the rug on early primaries. Watch the candidates, mostly, pull out. And here's the result: Duncan Hunter (534 votes); Fred Thompson (266 votes); Ron Paul (217 votes); Mike Huckabee (83 votes); Rudy Giuliani (78 votes); Mitt Romney (61 votes); Ray McKinney (28 votes); John Cox (10 votes); John McCain (8 votes); Sam Brownback (6 votes); Tom Tancredo (6 votes); and Hugh Cort (3 votes).

Texas Democrats responded with an online poll that, when last we looked, had about 6,500 votes. There's nothing to restrict repeat voting or that short of shenanigans, but John Edwards was ahead with about 37 percent. That voting will close at the end of the week.

• The Dallas Morning News has a new politics and government blog they say will cover presidential stuff on down to the Lege. It's at http://dallasnews.com/trailblazers.

College Daze

California Republicans have proposed a change in the way their state counts presidential electors. They'd dump the winner-takes-all system now in place and award electoral votes according to the outcomes of presidential votes in each congressional district.

Instead of taking all of that state's 55 electoral votes, the winning candidate would get a split. In the most recent elections, that would have put 22 additional electoral votes into George W. Bush's column; in future elections, it could swing the outcomes of presidential races that might now be in question for the GOP. The debate has been vigorous out there, as you might expect, but it prompted us to look at the Texas results to see what might happen if the law here changed.

The California proposal, applied to the 2004 results in Texas, would have given John Kerry, the most recent Democratic candidate for president, another seven electoral votes. That's the equivalent of a Connecticut, an Iowa, an Oklahoma, or an Oregon.

Texas has 32 congressional districts, and Democrats were elected to Congress in 12 of those. But only seven members of the Texas delegation represent districts where Bush lost the popular vote: Al Green, Gene Green, and Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston; Silvestre Reyes of El Paso; Charlie Gonzalez of San Antonio; Lloyd Doggett of Austin; and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas.

The two remaining electoral votes — one representing each U.S. senator — would have gone to Bush under either system, since he won the statewide popular vote.

A Colorado proposal in 2004 would have allocated electoral votes according to statewide percentages. Applied to the last Texas result, that would have swung a dozen votes to Kerry from Bush (Bush got 61.5 percent of the vote, enough to get 20 electoral votes). That'd be the mathematical equivalent of giving the Democrats another Massachusetts.

Only two states — Maine and Nebraska — don't have winner-takes-all systems in place. Here and in 47 other states, the presidential candidate with the most votes — either a plurality or a majority — gets all of the electoral votes. Here's a curiosity: Texas is one of 24 states that doesn't have a law requiring electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote.

Shark Bait

House Speaker Tom Craddick is giving his committee chairfolk a month to recommend subjects for interim charges — the off-season reports that often translate into legislation. For lobbyists looking for an early start, this is the next best thing to Sunset Commission reports.

Craddick's letter says: "To prepare for the 81st Legislature, I invite you to submit a list of issues pertinent to your House standing committee's jurisdiction that may require research and review during this interim.

"Please send your interim study suggestions to my chief of staff, Nancy Fisher, by Friday, September 28, so that I may consider your recommendations as I prepare the interim charges to House committees."

Political People and Their Moves

Officially, now: Former House Parliamentarian Denise Davis is joining the Baker Botts law firm's Austin office. She'll be special counsel in their government relations section.

Eileen Smith is joining the mainstream media. Smith, the creator of InThePinkTexas.com, will become the fulltime editor of TexasMonthly.com, the magazine's increasingly active website.

Two more press corps moves: Austin American-Statesman capitol reporter JasonEmbry is joining the Cox chain's Washington Bureau. He'll still write for the Statesman. And Liz Austin Petersen is leaving the Associated Press Austin Bureau. She's Houston-bound.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed John Hubert of Kingsville to be district attorney for Kleberg and Kenedy counties. He's a former prosecutor now in private practice. That's a new office; the two counties were part of the Nueces County's district attorney's territory.

Stacy Holley, the general counsel to Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, and director of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, is leaving government to be a full-time mom. Teddy Carter, that committee's clerk, adds the director title.

The House Committee on Public Health has a new clerk: Phil Fountain had been legislative director for Rep. Dianne White Delisi, R-Temple, who chairs that panel.

Deaths: Gertrude LaNelle Hays, who went on the state payroll in January, 1939, and became the longest-serving state employee. She was 90.

Quotes of the Week

President George W. Bush, asked by Australian Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile about the situation in Iraq, quoted in the Sydney [Australia] Morning Herald: "We're kicking ass."

Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum, telling the Dallas Morning News why many delegates to the GOP's straw poll weren't supporting front-runners Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney: "It's not because they're not here. It's because they're not conservative."

Mark Corallo, chief spokesman for former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, in the National Journal: "Every attorney general has to have a bit of Thomas Becket in him. Your duty is not to the king. It is to the rule of law."

Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo, telling The Dallas Morning News that — unlike some other state officials — he'll accept a pay raise approved by lawmakers: "I certainly didn't go over to the Capitol and advocate for a higher salary. But neither did I promise or intimate that I would never accept a pay increase."

---

Texas Weekly: Volume 24, Issue 12, 10 September 2007. Ross Ramsey, Editor. Copyright 2007 by Printing Production Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. One-year online subscription: $250. For information about your subscription, call (512) 302-5703 or email biz@texasweekly.com. For news, email ramsey@texasweekly.com, or call (512) 288-6598.

News, rumors and speculation on political races in the Bayou City area dominate the Texas blogosphere this week. Bloggers are also writing about contests around the rest of the state, picking up on rumors about a possible candidate for Governor in 2010 and noting the passing of a fellow blogger into the M$M (mainstream media). In honor of Banned Books Week, which takes place later this month, our final chapter comprises a tribute to some volumes on the list of "The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000," according to the American Library Association.

* * * * *

Space City

Brains and Eggs posts an invitation to a Bay Area New Democrats event in Clear Lake on Sept. 12 featuring U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, U.S. Senate hopeful Rick Noriega, Texas Supreme Court candidate Susan Criss, state Senate contender Joe Jaworski, state Representative hopeful Sherrie Matula and Houston City Council candidates Will Williams and Manisha Mehta.

Dos Centavos reports on a Kingwood Area Democrats' event featuring some of the same people and has a profile of Williams. Meanwhile, Half Empty blogs on Noriega's Labor Day appearance before the Washington County Democrats. And Off the Kuff praises Democratic Court of Appeals Judge Linda Yañez while lamenting that she's facing Criss for the Supreme Court sport.

Houston Mayor Bill White will demolish challengers Amanda Ulman and Outlaw Josey Wales IV, says Centavos. Houston's Clear Thinkers lobbies for a candidate in a campaign of a different color.

Former Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford will challenge Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal in a Democratic Primary race featuring "hardball politics" that "ought to be a real barnburner," says Grits for Breakfast. Half Empty reports on an awkward moment of silence that fell over a room inhabited by both state Rep. Dora Olivo, D-Rosenberg, and primary opponent Ron Reynolds. Here's a post on GOP candidate Steve Host.

Houston public schools trustee Greg Meyers, a Republican, is challenging state Rep. Hubert Vo, D-Houston, says Texas Politics, the Houston Chronicle's blog. Professors-R-Squared does a quick analysis of past election results in the district, contending that Meyers "has a good chance" of winning the seat.

Kuff points out that the Houston Chronicle misspelled the name of a candidate running for trustee of Houston Community College System, and blogHOUSTON exposes the connection of an expert source to trustee Jay Aiyer in the same article.

Kuff clarifies the process of replacing Harris County District Clerk Charles Bacarisse, who stepped down to take a shot at the GOP nomination for County Judge. And here's a list of all the candidates running for spots in Houston city government.

* * * * *

Outer Space

In his A Capitol Blog, State Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg, announces his reelection campaign and reemergence of campaign blog "Quixote." Capitol Annex supports Peña, despite his status as a "Craddick Democrat."

Annex speculates that Smith County Commissioner JoAnn Fleming, a Republican, will challenge either state Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, or state Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler; and also that San Angelo Rev. Floyd Crider, a Democrat, might take on U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Midland.

State Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, is sure to face an anti-toll opponent in the primary, and could face a "far-right" candidate backed by House Speaker Tom Craddick, according to Eye on Williamson.

In the Pink interviews Andy Brown, who is running for Travis County Democrat Party Chairman, while Texas Blue features an article by Becky Moeller, President of the Texas AFL-CIO, who says the top two items on organized labor's political agenda are universal health care and unionization. Here is an interview with Amber Moon, Communications Director for the Texas Democratic Party.

Austin lobbyist Sandy Kress is being touted for Commissioner of Education, says Texas Kaos, who isn't happy about it. Texas Politics says the Kress rumor may be a red herring "in order to make acting Education Commissioner Robert Scott that much more palatable."

State Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, "may or may not have recruited an opponent to [state Rep.] Kirk England [R-Grand Prairie]," relays Pink Dome.

Texas Politics links to the Houston Chronicle article outing U.S. Senate candidate Mikal Watts's letter touting heavy contributions to judges and has a copy of the letter itself.

Dee Margo is not running against state Rep. Pat Haggerty, R-El Paso, says Vaqueros & Wonkeros, the El Paso Times's blog. However, independent Troy Hicks might face off against state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, who is quoted as saying, "I want to be around for the next (House) speaker's race."

Texas State Association of Fire Fighters is endorsing Noriega, says Walker's Report, whose editor Steve Walker is vying for Bexar County Justice of the Peace. Walker also reports that Republican Presidential candidate Fred Thompson will be in San Antonio on Sept. 20.

* * * * *

Spelling G-U-B-E-R-N-A-T-O-R-I-A-L

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings might run for Texas Governor, says Eduwonk. Washington Whispers, a U.S. News & World Report blog, picks up and relays the rumor (which Eduwonk takes as confirmation of the rumor.)

"Clearly Republicans are dissatisfied with Perry too," says Burnt Orange Report. "What a silly rumor," says Professors. Another could-be gubernatorial candidate, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, lends strength to speculations through recent pushes for a Veterans Administration hospital in the Valley, for Valley levees and against toll roads, says South Texas Chisme.

* * * * *

In the Green

"I'm joining (ruining?) the ranks of the Evil MSM Empire but fear not," says In the Pink's Pink Lady (Eileen Smith) in the way of introduction of herself as the new editor of texasmonthly.com.

The Capitol Crowd is "absolutely in shock over this," while McBlogger hopes she'll host Texas Monthly Talks. Here is the official announcement from Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith.

* * * * *

Fantasy Bookcart

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley: Chronic, the Austin Chronicle's blog, summarizes constitutional amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot, while Kuff has photos of Lance Armstrong at Rice University supporting Proposition 15, which would create a $3 billion Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

Final Exit, by Derek Humphry: Kristen Mack is leaving the Houston Chronicle for the Washington Post. BlogHOUSTON hopes the Chronicle "is able to secure quality replacement(s)" for veteran Mack. Greg's Opinion hopes the door doesn't hit her on the way out.

Guess What? by Mem Fox: The Texas Department of Criminal Justice doesn't have a master list of banned books, but soon will, thanks to a $84.40 contribution by Grits.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou: But Grits for Breakfast asks, "Why can't the caged bird sing (at Texas Youth Commission facilities)?"

Jump Ship to Freedom, by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier: Former House Parliamentarian Denise Davis has a new gig as special counsel for Baker Botts, LLP, says The Capitol Crowd.

Private Parts, by Howard Stern: Grits reviews a book by a former cop on rampant steroid use among Texas cops.

Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut: Pink Dome launches a poll of the best and worst Texas legislative Web sites, starting off with opinions on those of Linda Harper-Brown, Diane Patrick, Tom Craddick, Patrick Rose and Garnet Coleman.

---

This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria and finds Austin's climate pleasantly arid. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.

Psst. It's the money.

Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-North Carolina, won the Texas Democratic Party's straw poll, bringing an end to the latest partisan forays in to the presidential race. Texas voters won't officially register their opinions on the Republican and Democratic nominees until March. By then, voting will be over in all but 18 states, six of which have their primaries on the same day as the Texas parties.

It'll be over by then, but Texas remains a key part of the finance primaries, which is why you're seeing all of these people here. Elizabeth Edwards, spouse of the straw poll winner, was in town to accept the accolades and free press on the candidate's behalf, and to do a fundraiser, too. She said her side liked a proposal that would have moved Texas to the front of the pack of primary states, on the theory that her husband would do well here. And she said he'd be better for Texas Democrats than his competition. "I don't think the Republican Party wants to see John at the top of the ticket," she said. Later, she added: "John Edwards is popular in red states. He can run in red states." That's been echoed privately by some Texas Democrats, who think other presidential contenders — U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton is usually the example given — could prove to be unpopular here, dragging on the rest of the ticket.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was in Texas, too, raising money in Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney touched down in Midland to collect checks. Former President Bill Clinton planned stops in Austin, San Antonio, and Laredo raising money for the former First Lady as we went to press this week. Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani threw out the first pitch at a Texas Rangers game before pitching his campaign to some potential financiers.

Richardson, who's running behind better-known Democrats in that half of the race, said he hopes to do well in Texas, with its large population of Hispanics. He admitted that the late primary here takes some of the punch out of that, but he's hopeful: "There are going to be several candidates [still] on their feet when it comes time for the Texas primary."

You've seen this number, but it illustrates the point: Through mid-year, the last reporting point, the presidential candidates had raised $14.9 million in Texas. Republicans were at $8.2 million, Democrats at $6.8 million. And the results of the Texas presidential poll that really matters to the campaigns — for now, anyhow — was like this: Giuliani, $3.8 million; Clinton, $2.1 million; Edwards, $2.0 million; U.S. Sen. John McCain, $1.8 million; Romney, $1.8 million; Obama, $1.5 million; everybody else, below $1 million each. The numbers are from the interactive presidential map on the Federal Election Commission's website.

The Democratic poll results, for the record: Edwards, with 37.7 percent; U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, 21.4 percent; Clinton, 20.43 percent; U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 11.9 percent; Richardson, 5.2 percent; U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, 2.4 percent. Nobody else got more than 100 votes of the 8,101 cast. The Democrats said their poll was more democratic than its Republican counterpart, since voters didn't have to travel to Fort Worth. It didn't even require voters to be Democrats, or old enough to vote, though party officials said they found a way to block out-of-state Internet users and to prevent people from voting more than once.

The federal highway bill making its way through Congress has (at least) two Texas bits in it.

One is a ban on Mexican trucks on U.S. roadways that's been getting national attention. The second is a prohibition against adding toll booths to existing interstate highways — an idea proposed by the money-hungry Texas Department of Transportation. TXDOT officials and their commissioners say the state needs roads they don't have the money to build.

One proposal — made in a report to Congress called Forward Momentum — would have raised money for Texas construction by adding tolls. Here's how TXDOT put it: "Congress has enacted specific legislation to allow states to 'buy back,' or reimburse the federal government for federal funds applied to a highway segment, thereby relieving it of the prohibition against tolls. Congressional efforts to make this option as accessible as possible will greatly assist future endeavors as we seek new ways to fund our tremendous transportation needs in Texas."

The political blowback was predictably swift, and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison jumped in with an amendment to the federal highway bill (the other Texas senator, John Cornyn, signed on, too)prohibiting Texas or any other state from using that financing scheme. We should mention here that the TXDOT proposal called for voter and county commission approval before any such deal could have gone forward.

Maybe nobody will remember this in six months, but the people who want Texans to approve $3 billion in cancer bonds are having a hard time keeping their act together.

At the end of the legislative session, this was a unified effort involving Democrats, Republicans, legislators, private foundations, advocacy groups and a passel of medical folks. But internal squabbling over big stuff (like whose donations to take and whose are poisonous) and little stuff (the logo for the group ate up a significant amount of meeting time) has dominated the run-up to this campaign.

They all appear to be working to pass the amendment and have started — with a celebrity boost from athlete and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong — to publicize their efforts. So there's that.

But they'll do it from different perches. Cathy Bonner, an Austin businesswoman who started the ball rolling on the cancer bonds last year, remains on the board of Texans to Cure Cancer, but also has a separate organization called Cure in Your Lifetime. Consultants tied to Gov. Rick Perry have started a separate PAC called Yes on 15.

The three political committees aren't taking money from the same types of donors, and are trying to cut up their roles to minimize the opportunities for bickering while they all work on the constitutional amendment.

Texans to Cure Cancer won't take money from pharmaceutical or tobacco companies, and will concentrate on grassroots campaigning and publicity. Yes on 15 apparently plans to accept drug company contributions, and possibly money from tobacco, too. "We won't have any restriction on ours," said Chris Cronn, who's on leave from the governor's office to work on the constitutional amendment. "We welcome anyone's help."

The reason for the first PAC's tobacco ban is obvious; among other things, some members of the coalition don't accept tobacco donations and won't belong to a group that does.

The dispute over money from drug companies goes back to the legislative session and the battle over the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Perry issued an executive order to vaccinate all 12-year-old girls in the state, as HPV is a leading cause of cervical cancer. But he sparked two political grassfires with the proposal. Lawmakers balked at the idea of requiring a vaccine for sixth graders against a sexually transmitted disease. They didn't like the governor's attempt to do by executive order something they believe is a legislative prerogative. And they freaked out when they discovered that Mike Toomey, Perry's former chief of staff, represented Merck — the only provider of the vaccine. Two Republican lawmakers on the front line of that fight — Sen. Jane Nelson of Lewisville and Rep. Jim Keffer of Eastland — also happen to be sponsors of the cancer bond legislation. And they're on the board of the PAC that's promoting the constitutional amendment that'll be on the November ballot.

That committee includes the Lance Armstrong Foundation, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and doctors from several of the state's medical schools. The board members are Nelson, Keffer, Bonner, and former Comptroller John Sharp, who is the treasurer.

The Yes on 15 committee will focus on advertising on TV, cable TV and billboards, with a budget in the $1 million range. The supporters of the amendment hope to have a total budget — across all of the PACs — of up to $1.5 million.

Two guys who've spent millions trying to get Republicans into office in Texas are being inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame. Not for the politics, but for how they made their bucks. Former gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams Jr. of Midland and GOP financier James Leininger of San Antonio are both on this year's slate. Williams made his money in oil and gas, and his political spending was mostly on his own run for the state's highest office, in 1990. Leininger, a doctor who turned around a defunct hospital bed company and made a fortune, is one of the Texas GOP's most prolific donors.

Debra Wanser moved to deputy commissioner at the Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services from the Department of Familiy and Protective Services. She had been assistant commissioner for Adult Protective Services there.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst appointed Donald Wood of Odessa to the Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board. That's the panel that oversees the state's dormant Texas Tomorrow Fund and its active 527 college investment plan. Wood is an executive with Southwest Energy Distributors and president of Permian Enterprises LTD.

Katherine Cesinger is leaving Gov. Rick Perry's press office for the policy shop. Her replacement is Allison Castle, most recently with ROSS Communications in Austin.

The governor named Louis Sturns of Fort Worth to the 213th District Court, replacing Robert Gill, who retired. Sturns will give up his spot on the state's Public Safety Commission to take the job. He's a former Texas Racing Commissioner and a former judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. 

Perry named three people to the State Board of Social Worker Examiners, which regulates that profession: Jody Anne Armstrong of Abilene, retired from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services; Denise Pratt, a Baytown lawyer; and Mark Talbot, a McAllen lawyer.

Perry named eleven Texans to the new Border Security Council, including Brownsville County Judge Carlos Cascos, who'll be the presiding officer. The panel will include Brewster County Judge Val Clark Beard of Alpine; Fred Burton of Austin, vice president of STRATFOR, a private intelligence company; Hudspeth County Judge Becky Dean-Walker of Sierra Blanca; Texas Commissioner of Environmental Quality Buddy Garcia; Robert Holt of Midland, a rancher and oil producer and former Texas Department of Public Safety commissioner; Maverick County Sheriff Tomas Herrera of Eagle Pass; Scott McLaughlin of El Paso, president of Stagecoach Cartage and Distribution; Victoria County Sheriff T. Michael O'Connor of Victoria; San Antonio attorney Allan Polunsky, who's a current Texas Public Safety Commissioner; and Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson.