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This is not an official campaign site as Senator Patrick has not declared he is running for Governor. He has not approved this site. This site has been put up by those of us who would like to encourage him to run for Texas Governor. He has been a true conservative voice of the people and is one who is not afraid to speak out, even against his own party. As he likes to say in speeches "It is time we find elected officials who care more about the next generation than the next election." If you would like to learn more about Senator Dan Patrick or ask him to run for Texas Governor, you can contact him by going to his campaign website here: DanPatrick.org John & Hope Hennessey

With Indiana and North Carolina out of the way, and Florida and Michigan still in political purgatory, the Democratic presidential candidates have nearly as many delegates at stake among the uncommitted superdelegates as in the remaining primariesThat's 223 superdelegates — including 10 in Texas — who haven't publicly agreed to support a particular candidate, and 274 delegates at stake in the remaining primaries in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota. Texas is just a small piece of that and most of the state's 35 superdelegates are committed. So far, they're split pretty evenly, with 13 pledged to Hillary Clinton 12 pledged to Barack Obama, and ten unpledged (including three who won't be selected until the state Democratic convention on the first weekend of June) [editor's note: this has been updated, on the chart below]. As you'd expect, the phones of the people in the undecided column are very busy this week. And then there's the matter of those three delegates-to-be-named: They'll be appointed by Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie and confirmed by the state party's governing committee. Here's the current list of where the state's superdelegates stand:

This week, pollsters dropped the equivalent of Fat Man and Little Boy on the blogosphere, which exploded accordingly. With their remaining energy, bloggers also were talking about money, the Presidential race and Mother's Day. And there's more.

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Poll Position

Walker Report relays the official release by Rasmussen Reports about their poll showing Democrat Rick Noriega within four points of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. And here's the subsequent DailyKos poll with similar results.

"I think the poll is credible," says BurkaBlog. And Greg's Opinion is that the drop in Cornyn's numbers could be the result of John McCain being the presumptive GOP nominee. Greg also wonders if Cornyn will run some television during the summer.

"This is a PARTY ID poll and it's clear that whatever advantage the R's had in the past has evaporated under the heat of rank incompetence," says McBlogger. "The old wisdom of 50R/35D/15I would seem to me to not be operative any longer," says Off the Kuff. Analysis of cross-tabs by Kuff here. And musings by Dos-Centavos here.

Results show that Noriega has much more room to improve before the election than Cornyn does, according to Texas Blue. And Texas Observer Blog says the numbers could lead to better fundraising for Noriega.

The news sparks four posts by Burnt Orange Report: initial jubilee, a roundup of blog reactions, poll crosstabs and more jubilee after the release of the DailyKos poll.

Postcards from the Lege, the Austin American-Statesman's blog, talked to the relevant official campaign sources and also has a report on a fundraiser for Cornyn featuring Mitt Romney, wherein a Cornyn spokesman expresses befuddlement at the poll results. Eye on Williamson comments on said entry.

Chronic, the Austin Chronicle's blog, says it's admirable that the Democrats are even within "spitting distance" of the GOP.

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Johnny Cash

Burka says the gas tax isn't a "tax" -- it's a "user fee." He also says that a recent op-ed by new transportation appointee Deirdre Delisi implies that she's against increasing said user fee. Meanwhile, Texas Parte Blog has the latest on legal battling by strip clubs against the so-called "pole tax."

Texas Politics says state comptroller Susan Combs estimates the state surplus to be $10.7 billion -- $4.3 billion less than the number given by House Speaker Tom Craddick. "Combs said the speaker's office 'mis-read' a revenue statement." Postcards describes the surplus as "a squishy number." And Texas Kaos takes Craddick to task for securing state health insurance for his grown daughter.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is planning a Fourth of July fundraiser for Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, says Postcards.

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It's a Bird, It's a Plane...

Now that superdelegate Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, is officially backing Hillary Clinton, the only uncommitted Texas superdelegate-congressman left is Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, points out Half-Empty (and here's our chart of the situation now). Texas Politics tries to figure out the status of all the Lone Star supers. And KVUE's Political Junkie takes the opportunity to post a picture of state party chair Boyd Richie doing the twist.

Burnt Orange has pictures of a voter registration drive in Austin by the Obama campaign. PoliTex, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's blog, says those kinds of things could be signs that Obama isn't prepared to cede Texas to McCain come November. And former Land Commissioner Gary Mauro says Clinton should keep fighting, in a podcast on Texas Politics.

Texas on the Potomac, the blog by the Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau, notes a sex-change operation resulting from the current tides in the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, LULAC is suing the state Democratic party over delegates of the not-so-super variety, says Postcards. And Alan Keyes is still in the running for President, as the candidate of America's Independent Party of Texas, says Chronic.

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Mother's Day

Grits for Breakfast wished a Happy Mother's Day to the moms from the Yearning For Zion ranch. (And Observer looks at the legal aspects of the ongoing child custody case.)

Muckraker rags on TxDOT for closing a section of Interstate 35 on a busy travel weekend, while Walker has photos of political persons who are also mothers. And Burnt Orange wonders why Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Austin, is opposed to mothers and women in general.

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The Rest

Political Junkie spotted state Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, on the road. WhosPlayin says independent Donald Tracey is no longer in the running for the Congressional District 26 seat. And Grits posts on innocence here, here, here, here and here.

Blue goes "On the Record" with John Cullar, County Chair for the McLennan County Democratic Party, and interviews state Democratic convention head Isabel Zermeño.

Gov. Rick Perry says, again, that he's going to run, again, in 2010, according to Texas Politics. Perry also took time to go watch the ponies in Kentucky, says the same blog.

And PoliSci@UST gets Headline of the Week award for a post about adult beverages, titled "The most important travel site. EVER."

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This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is spending the spring in the mid-Atlantic region. 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.

This starts with a chart shoved in our faces by an energetic and smart student at the University of Texas. The conversation in a political science class late last year turned to Williamson County, and the reelection chances of Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock.

Krusee won an unexpectedly close race in 2006. Democrats had him in their targets (he has since decided not to seek reelection) based on that 2006 race.

That's when the anonymous student (he didn't leave his name) pulled up a chart on his laptop computer, showing the difference between Republican and Democratic voting patterns in gubernatorial and presidential years. Everybody knows that more people vote in presidential years. This chart, however, showed that the presidential year balloon in that county was red. The difference on the Democratic side in 2004, a presidential year, and 2006, a gubernatorial election year, was about 15,000 votes. That many more Democrats voted in Williamson County in 2004 than in 2006. But the swing in the number of Republicans was significantly larger — about 26,000 votes. The student's theory was that a candidate like Krusee, who could survive the 2006 election, would probably be okay in a presidential year. More Republicans turning, more buffer for a downballot Republican candidate.

Some counties — Travis, next door to Williamson, is an example — have bigger Democratic margins in presidential years than in gubernatorial years. Some Democratic counties — Hidalgo is one — are more strongly Democratic in gubernatorial years; that is, Democrats beat Republicans, on average, by more votes in gubernatorial years there. And in some — Collin and Denton are in this rank — the presidential year Republican bloat exceeds 70 percent. The average statewide Republican margin of about 57,000 votes in Collin County turns into about 100,000 votes in a presidential year.

It's a look in the rear-view mirror and not a predictor of what's going to happen next. And if you look at county-by-county numbers, you'll find some landmarks. George W. Bush did extraordinarily well in that first presidential election, even in Democratic counties. So that skews the numbers. His home-state advantage in 2004 was smaller, but still apparent. Texas Democrats did much better in 2002, when they ran a strong statewide ticket, than in 2006, when they ran a serious race for governor and weak candidates for most other statewide contests. You can see it in the numbers: a million-vote average difference between statewide Republicans and Democrats in 2006, and half that in 2002.

And the state is becoming more competitive for the minority party — when Democrats field credible, well-financed candidates. That's why, for instance, the Republicans running for statewide judicial positions are nervous this year. Those elections have more to do with party identification than with anything else. Bush, who's still more popular in Texas than he is elsewhere, won't be on the ticket. Republicans are having a rough time nationally. And while the Republican turnout in the primaries grew dramatically this year, the GOP numbers were puny next to the growth in Democratic turnout.

One indication of change: Both sides consider Krusee's open seat in Williamson County a battleground race. It used to be solidly Republican.

By now, Texas businesses were supposed to have already filed returns and written checks for the newish business margins tax. They got a one-month reprieve from Comptroller Susan Combs, who decided the level of confusion was high enough to give everyone another month to calculate and pay up.

That probably delays some of the noise the new tax will generate, but not all of it.

The Texas branch of the National Federation of Independent Business is trying to build a business coalition to change the new tax. Their complaint is that the tax is too high, that it puts a hardship on companies with losses or tiny net incomes, that it's not offset by drops in property taxes, and that smaller businesses should get more of a break than they're getting.

To judge from comments from NFIB and from business people who spoke at a protest lunch on the day the tax was supposed to come due, lots of people weren't paying attention when lawmakers approved the tax two years ago.

They complained of being surprised by the tax. Some said their accountants are confused. Some said they thought their property tax relief was supposed to match their tax increase. And others said peculiarities of their operations make the new tax unfair.

Quick refresher (cribbed from our own archives of two years ago): The new tax kills the corporate franchise tax and replaces it with a levy on adjusted gross revenues of corporations and partnerships in the state. Businesses can choose what they deduct — either their cost of goods sold, or (most of) their employee compensation. Most would pay the state one percent of what's left after that calculation; retailers and wholesalers would pay 1/2 of one percent.

NFIB didn't lobby the tax when lawmakers passed it in special session two years ago; they say opposition among their members didn't reach the necessary 70 percent at the time, so they stayed out. Now that the members are seeing the tax bills (and NFIB sees the opportunity for a membership drive), the opposition is louder.

The group was joined by four lesser-know outfits (the Independent Electrical Contractors of Texas, the Air Conditioning Contractors of America Texas Chapter, the Associated Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors of Texas, and the Texas Courier and Logistics Association) at an Austin lunch that drew about 150 people.

They'll push for several changes to the new tax, saying it shouldn't apply when companies are losing money or have only small profits; that the exemption for small businesses should be raised to $1 million in gross receipts from $300,000 now; that businesses with annual gross receipts under $20 million should pay only half the one percent tax rate; that all businesses should be allowed to include contract employees when adding up their deductions for payrolls; that the rate shouldn't be allowed to change unless the change gets approval from two-thirds of the House and of the Senate; and that businesses shouldn't have to pay more than twice what they paid under the old corporate franchise tax.

NFIB is trying to recruit other business groups and officials say they've got some prospects lined up. And members of the four groups that have joined in spoke at the lunch and, after it, with reporters.

"We've all made mistakes," said Gordon Stewart, an electrical contractor from Houston. "I have faith in our legislators... but I also believe they didn't know what they were getting into when they passed this."

He was the first of several speakers who said the tax was onerous. One electrical contractor said his taxes had risen to $50,000 from $3,900, but also said his company had $21 million in sales and $5 million in profits. An air conditioning contractor, Rebecca Maddux of Houston, said her business taxes quadrupled. She said later that it would have helped to know the rules last year, when she could have budgeted and planned for the tax (the comptroller didn't have final rules in place until early this year, and didn't have the form for filing the taxes completed until April 1). Maddux also said her business didn't get any property tax relief, since her father owns the land it's on and got that break.

Combs has started collecting the tax, but it's not due until June 15 and she has said it will be a couple of months — maybe August or September — before she's confident enough to say how much money the new levy has put in state accounts. House Speaker Tom Craddick recently said the state will have $15 billion more than it's currently spending when lawmakers write the next budget. Whether that's right or not, that number has found its way to voters. And Gov. Rick Perry is already talking about tax refunds if that number is correct, while others are saying the state should use any unfettered funds to improve or expand state services.

A lot will hinge on the two numbers coming within the next seven months from the comptroller: How much state revenue the new tax has produced, and how much money she expects the state to collect from other taxes over the next two years.

Those figures will frame the fight over tax cuts and revisions and on state spending in the 2009 legislative session.

One of the nation's biggest pro-choice organizations endorsed Barack Obama, but the Texas affiliate of NARAL isn't joining in.

NARAL Pro-Choice Texas issued a statement saying they won't endorse right now in the presidential race, but will "when a pro-choice nominee for president is named." They'll wait for the Democratic convention, in other words. How do they feel about Republican John McCain? They call him an "anti-choice candidate." He won't be getting the nod.

The Texas Supreme Court denied a plea from Rep. Nathan Macias' lawyers to replace the judge hearing his case. And the court recount of his election defeat in HD-73 is set for Monday, May 19.

Macias, a freshman Republican from Bulverde, lost the GOP primary to former New Braunfels Mayor Doug Miller. It was close, though, and Macias thinks alleged hanky-panky in Gillespie County's Box 5 — where the votes came in late, and for a time, Miller's sister-in-law mingled with the counters — might have cost him his reelection. His lawyers wanted the judge removed without stating a reason; the judge — upheld on appeal — said that works in regular cases, but not election contests. The difference between the winner and the loser: 17 votes. Trivia: Two years ago, Macias beat incumbent Rep. Carter Casteel, R-New Braunfels, by just 45 votes.

Texas Republicans have a door-knocking campaign going on this weekend, encouraging their grass-roots folks to get out and gather names of people who might vote with the GOP in November.

Their pitch to volunteers is that Democrats are jazzed up this year and the Republicans need to catch up. They've got various officials — U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams — promising to give $250 rewards to people who win drawings after turning in 60 new names.

• U.S. Sen. John Cornyn's campaign doesn't trust polls that show Democrat Rick Noriega only four points behind the incumbent. But they're using the scare to try to raise money. Their latest pitch: " The facts are clear, the extreme left is energized and unscrupulous, and our opponent is shamelessly aligned with them and will say and do anything it takes to gain much needed relevance and resources." Two separate polls had Noriega just behind Cornyn; and both, like others we've seen, had Cornyn holding less than 50 percent support.

• Midland Democrat Bill Dingus filed a friendly lawsuit against the Texas Democratic Party in an attempt to clear up his spot on the ballot. He was on the Midland City Council when he filed to run against House Speaker Tom Craddick. He's asking the state court to declare him an eligible candidate. No court date's been set.

• Texas Agriculture Commission Todd Staples is going to Cuba on a trade mission. He says he's the first statewide elected official from here to do that in 45 years. He'll take a couple of dozen people with him; they're trying to expand trade between Texas and the island.

• Pat Dixon, the state chairman of the Libertarian Party, is now an elected official after winning a spot on the Lago Vista City Council. He was on the council before, lost the seat in 2007 and will go back on.

• One of the best campaign finance websites — OpenSecrets.org — has been redesigned. It's faster, searches are better, and one of the truly great resources on the Internet is now even better. In about two seconds, we had our mitts on this: Texas ranks third among the states in total contributions to federal candidates in this election cycle, fourth in money given to Democrats, second in money given to Republicans, and first in soft-money contributions. Texans have contributed $90.6 million to federal candidates so far, with about three-fifths to Republicans and two-fifths to Democrats.