Lobbyist, parliamentary wizard, political consultant, blogger, and former reporter Jim Warren, died this evening from complications of liver disease. He was 42. Services are tentatively set for Monday in Huntsville.

Wendy Davis remains on the ballot in a hotly contested race for state Senate in Fort Worth.Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, has appealed that decision; he contends she's ineligible because her term on the city council overlapped with her candidacy. The appeals track is slow, though, and time is short: Brimer didn't appeal directly to the Texas Supreme Court, but to the appellate court in Fort Worth. The last day the Texas Secretary of State will take a name off the ballot is August 22. And it's difficult to put a new name on the ballot after August 26, so if the idea is to knock her off and give Democrats time to replace her, somebody needs to step on it. Judges have been known to bow out of election decisions once those timers have run out; they're not fond of deciding elections with gavels instead of ballots.

• Brimer, meanwhile, will hold a funder/rally aimed at the gender thing. "Women leaders of Tarrant County salute state Sen. Kim Brimer" will be hosted by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and a dozen-and-a-half other elected officials. It's a luncheon, August 19.

• Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones is headlining a fundraiser for former Rep. Todd Hunter, the Republican challenging current Rep. Juan Garcia, D-Corpus Christi.

• Houston Republicans are holding a fundraiser next week featuring House Speaker Tom Craddick and "special guest" Karl Rove.

• Chris Bell picked up an endorsement from West University Mayor Bob Kelly in his bid for state Senate. Kelly's in a non-partisan office, but he's a Republican. Bell's a Democrat. Another candidate in that race, Joan Huffman, fires back with endorsements from the mayors of Bellaire (Cindy Siegel) and Southside Place (Richard Rothfelder) and sprinkles that with three city council members from those bergs. That's the seat opened when Kyle Janek, R-Houston, resigned. She's also picking up an endorsement from the Texas Municipal Police Association.

• Texas won't get a waiver from federal grain fuels rules, a win for farmers that was blasted by Republican state officials. Gov. Rick Perry asked for a partial waiver from a federal policy encouraging grain production for ethanol and other fuels. He and others say the policy is reducing the food supply and resulting in higher prices from feed grain to grocery bills. Perry was joined by Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who also think the Environmental Protection Agency should have granted the waiver. But the Texas Farm Bureau applauded, as did the Texas Corn Producers Board, which contends there's no link between using corn for fuel and rising food prices, and argues that ethanol lowers gasoline prices by up to a dollar per gallon. People in the cattle business were on Perry's side. The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association says the feds are putting food and fuel in competition with each other and called that "a dangerous gamble."

• Citigroup will unfreeze accounts and pay investors for misleading them about the safety and liquidity of auction rate securites. That started with an investigation by the Texas State Securities Board and counterparts in other states and the federal government. Citigroup agreed to settle up with customers who lost money because of its actions on the securities and to pay $100 million in fines to the states involved. Regulators say they're still investing ARS dealings by other firms.

• Boring government stuff that actually involves money: Texas' short-term notes got the highest available bond ratings from Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch's. That'll keep interest lower on money the state borrows to cover cash flow each autumn.

Texas candidates and political committees had $142.4 million in the bank at mid-year, with more than half — $85.6 million — in the hands of the 100 biggest campaign treasuries.

The money's concentrated at the top: 10 candidates and PACs have 26 percent of the total, and half of the money is held by 50 of them. That's from a total of 2,474 political organizations that reported mid-year numbers to the Texas Ethics Commission.

The top ten includes six candidates — Attorney General Greg Abbott, Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, Gov. Rick Perry, Comptroller Susan Combs and Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. They're among the 16 with at least $1 million on hand. Abbott, who tops the list, had $8 million in the bank at mid-year.

Texas Realtors had $10.5 million, split between two PACs. The Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC and the Union Pacific Fund for Effective Government rounded out the top ten.

We got the numbers by combining two TEC reports: One listing mid-year cash on hand totals reported by candidates and campaigns and another listing cash on hand reported in July by political outfits that file monthly with the state. The top 50 are listed in the chart below; if you click on it, you'll download a .pdf file of the top 500.

The nation's liberal bloggers stormed Austin for a four-day convention this weekend. Across town, Texas' conservative bloggers countered with a two-day conference of their own. We came, we watched, we read, we blog.

* * * * *

One

Before the Netroots Nation event began Thursday, the Texas GOP sent out a humorous e-mail "welcoming" the visiting bloggers to the state. The letter says Texas is prosperous because "we do it by enacting public policies that are EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what you Nutroots advocate." KVUE-TV's Political Junkie says the e-mail brought in about $10,000 in donations for Republicans.

KXAN-TV reserved a blog for its coverage of the Netroots conference. Capital Annex contributed.

In the Pink's Pink Lady Eileen Smith was interviewed by KEYE-TV, followed by Amber Lee Ettinger, also known as Obama Girl because of the videos she's posted. Ettinger made a big splash at the convention with her appearance. Here are videos of her by In the Pink and Postcards from the Lege, the Austin American-Statesman's blog. (Ettinger and Postcards didn't hit it off, apparently.)

Pictures? Sure. Here's a photo of Dallas Morning News' Trailblazer Karen Brooks and Pink Lady Smith on In the Pink, and a picture of Brooks with Ettinger.

For Texas Monthly's Poll Dancing, Pink Ladyhas video of Annex's Vince Leibowitz, Rep. Harold Ford Jr., documentarian Paul Stekler, Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte, Burnt Orange Report's Matt Glazer and Karl-Thomas Musselman with Off the Kuff's Charles Kuffner, Houston city councilwoman Melissa Noriega and the Netroots' swag bag. (Pink Lady and Trailblazer Brooks collaborated on the swag video and another one.)

Here's what Texas Observer Blog saw happening on Thursday and video of attendees from Texas Blue. Chronic, the Austin Chronicle's blog, filmed a speech by Howard Dean. Texas Blue also has video of Howard Dean, while Postcards has a chat with "Netroots Rising" author Nate Wilcox.

Trailblazers picked out Vincent Harris, chief blogger for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, at the first day of the convention. That evening, retired Gen. Wesley Clark and U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett endorsed Noriega at a bloggers' party at an Austin club. Junkie got a photo.

* * * * *

Two

Annex has video of three of the day's panel discussions — "Lone Star Candidates, the Class of 2008," "Our 'Dos Centavos': Stategies for Latino Bloggers" and "Inside the National Laboratory For Bad Government." Meanwhile, Chronic split time between two morning panels, one held by a documentarian and one by big-time political consultants.

Burnt Orange spotted Cornyn staffer David Beckwith doing some opposition research at the convention, and Observer labels the blogosphere a "Boys' Club."

Mean rachel caught a panel on military blogging, and Trailblazers took a photo of a roomful of bloggers. (If you look close, you can see us in the middle of the picture wearing a green shirt.)[eds. note: yeah, we see you, you can get paid this month...]

The conservatives' Defending the American Dream Summit started Friday. "It's kind of amusing watching our friends on the right try to play catchup in this arena," says Kuff.

Voice in the Wildernessliveblogged here, here, here, here and here. So did The Travis Monitor. And Postcards did a live chat with conservative strategist Ryan Gravatt.

* * * * *

Three

The inventor of the Internets himself, Al Gore, made a "surprise" appearance at the Netroots convention on Saturday, sharing time with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Blue shares his notes on Gore's speech, and Three Wise Men make a transcript of Pelosi's speech. Chronic sums up what Pelosi and Gore had to say and has a photo of Gore. Here's more from Pelosi via Chronic. Gore upstaged Pelosi, says Observer.

Gore wasn't the only surprise guest. Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, in town for the conservative confab across town, stopped by the liberal conference, too, says Chronic.

Observer covers a panel by The Center for Constitutional Rights, while Mean rachel attended a workshop on "Bloggers and the New Green Economy."

Mean rachel says the night's best party was thrown by the Huffington Post and GQ.

Walker Report took photos of the liberals here, here and here, and of the conservatives here and here.

Observer attended an American Dream discussion "Old Media," and Kevin Stilley liveblogs about it. (Stilley also writes about a panel called "How the Right Can Win Online" and a talk by Robert Novak.) The conservatives want to expand domestic drilling for oil, says Observer.

Voice in the Wilderness liveblogged the day's events here, here, here, here and here. The Travis Monitor wrote throughout the day, too.

Policy Spotlight listened to Texas Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones talk about energy. Make-A-Statement.org filmed Wall Street Journal editorial staffer Steve Moore talk about taxes, while The Jackalope's Voice took a photo with speaker Michelle Malkin. Urban Grounds got a picture with her, too.

* * * * *

Four

Chronic says environmentalist Van Jones' talk " may have been one of the worst-attended keynotes of the whole Netroots Nation event." And Kuff posts his random thoughts on the conference, noting that next year's conference is in Pittsburgh.

Voice in the Wilderness has a roundup of coverage of the conservative convention. So does Memoirs from a Young Conservative. And Rightwingsparkle has photos.

* * * * *

PB's Notebook

Granted, the Austin Convention Center was big, and we didn't stick around for the afternoon sessions, but the attendance figure of 2,000 being tossed around in the media might be a bit high. Parking wasn't a problem, anyway.

Since we read the blogs to compile Out There, we attended Thursday's "Lurker Caucus" and listened to dozens of people explain why they don't comment on the blogs they read, but traveled from all over the country to go to the bloggers' convention.

Musings blogger muse ran Melissa Noriega's campaign for city council. Husband Rick Noriega says Melissa first got involved with the netroots while he was in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005. She says she relied on the blogs to educate herself on the Texas Lege while filling in for him in the state House.

Noriega campaign manager Mark Bell told us Cornyn has a staffer tail the Democratic candidate at all public appearances.

House District 129 candidate Sherrie Matula 's staff is stocked with blog-savvy individuals: her campaign manager, field coordinator and volunteer coordinator.

Senate District 11 candidate Joe Jaworski considered running against Rep. Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, in 2006 after receiving a phone call from Rahm Emmanuel. Jaworski says he even went to talk to Paul, who was an acquaintance of his grandfather.

The first time Jaworski saw Burnt Orange, he thought it was alumni magazine for The University of Texas at Austin. He's become more Web savvy since then, and now has 6,000 people on his email list.

Noriega visited former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes in Washington, D.C., last year to talk about running against Cornyn. Noriega says the blogs do a good job of "putting out facts when the lazy mainstream media won't do the work." He says the Texas Monthly article is "absolutely categorically wrong" when it says that he shushed his wife Melissa.

CD-7 candidate Michael Skelly says the 2003 redistricting plan and "big demographic changes" have placed extra Democrats into incumbent John Culberson 's district, making the race competitive.

Skelly says Culberson was wrong to call out NASA in a Chronicle article. Skelly disagrees with Culberson's premise and says if he had a problem with an agency, he would work to fix it through legislation, not public relations.

State Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, loaned out some of his Campaign Academy volunteers to distribute fliers with information on the convention's unofficial night life parties. The others were out in Austin on traditional campaign duties, he says.

This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. 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.

Texas bloggers are taking time out to explore topics over multiple posts. They're also creating and spreading gossip, catching unwitting politicians on film and debating energy policy in the context of the U.S. Senate race. And there's the usual assortment of miscellaneous posts.

* * * * *

A Series of Series

Burnt Orange Report attempts to refute stereotypes that bloggers are uncompromising young white male mainstream media haters who don't operate in the real world. Click here to read all the posts. And here's In the Pink Texas's take.

Texas Kaos has a two-parter on the state House race featuring candidates with hard-to-spell names — Democrat Donnie Dippel, Republican Tim Kleinschmidt and Libertarian Alan W. Duesterhof. Part one comprises the electoral victories of retiring incumbent Robby Cook, D-Eagle Lake, a county-by-county analysis of partisan voting trends and brief bios on the candidates. In part two, Kaos has more detailed information on Dippel and Kleinschmidt.

On a more partisan note, Kaos posts three times on "The Love Fest Between Senator Cornyn and Big Money," here, here and here.

BurkaBlog's in the Beltway, and he files five reports from Washington. First, Senate Republicans are at odds with Pres. George W. Bush over the veto of a Medicare bill. Second, important people are seriously considering U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, for the vice presidential slot. Third, U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions is spooked by a scheme to "reunionize America." Fourth, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is running for governor, according to an anonymous congressman who's a big fan of hers. Fifth, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi employs procedural rules to control floor debate, irking Republicans.

KXAN-TV's Policy Primer live-blogs the National Conference of State Legislators summit in Nawlins, while Grits for Breakfast and the Houston Chronicle's Texas Politics blog teamed up for a podcast and a post on federal license plate readers and Texas highways. And Texas on the Potomac, another Chronicle blog, writes all about Houston lobbyist Stephen Payne here, here and here.

Meanwhile, Libertarian blog Liberty Maven compares the presidential candidates to U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, using its patented Paul-O-Meter. The results: Libertarian Bob Barr and Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin tied for first, followed by Ralph Nader, Republican John McCain, Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney and finally Democrat Barack Obama.

* * * * *

Rumor Mill

After conversations with "numerous Arlington-area Republican sources," the Ellis County Observer says U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, will retire in 2010. The writer Joey Dauben notes up front that he mounted a short-lived GOP primary campaign against Barton in 2005. After the news percolates through the Internets a bit, Dauben reasserts that Barton's impending retirement is "a done deal" and contradicts rebuttals by Barton's press secretary.

Meanwhile, Barton's political consultant Craig Murphy tells Postcards from the Lege, the Austin American-Statesman's blog, "It’s not true. He’s going to stay in the office. I think they’re going to have to carry him out boots first." And on a personal note, Rhetoric & Rhythm regrets voting for Barton in 1984.

* * * * * *

Candid Camera

ABC 13-TV's Houston Political Blog writer Miya Shay scores some undercover video of Bush saying Wall Street "got drunk" at a fundraiser for Congressional District 22 candidate Pete Olson. As we're writing, Shay's footage and posts about Bush's remarks do not appear on the blog. (Either there's been a glitch, or someone powerful got real angry. But here's a teaser for the impending scoop, here's an Associated Press story, and here's reaction from Olson and opponent U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, via Potomac.

In other news, a KVUE-TV photographer accuses House Speaker Tom Craddick and wife Nadine of cutting in line at the Austin airport, via Political Junkie. Craddick denies that this ever happened, but the photog is standing firm.

* * * * *

Sen-ergy

Eye on Williamson has video and a press release from Noriega announcing an energy plan. Capitol Annex analyzes the plan. Half Empty says it's "darn near perfect" and scoffs at Cornyn for saying the U.S. imports only one-third of its oil.

Conservative Joshua's Blog says Noriega is a flip-flopper, who can't raise money and has no energy policy. Williamson Republic relays a video of Cornyn on oil. And Right Up Front makes fun of Noriega for drawing a mere dozen Londoners to a recent fundraiser.

Texas Politics has a back-and-forth with Cornyn's office over partisanship and Hurricane Dolly and posts audio of a conference call with Cornyn.

Noriega clarifies that he's against drilling for oil in Alaska, according to Trail Blazers, the Dallas Morning News's blog. And a visit to Waco is worth $168 to the Cornyn campaign, according to Texas Politics.

* * * * *

Miscellany

Burnt Orange breaks down fundraising numbers for Texas House races. Grits for Breakfast takes a look at the latest crime stats from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. And TexasSparkle calls Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams a "rising star."

Postcards shot video of Attorney Greg Abbott in Washington talking about the Eldorado polygamist sect. Here's the report. Texas is not among the 17 states targeted by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says Junkie. The Texican Tattler gloats.

Mean rachel offers to spot state Rep. Elliot Naishtat, D-Austin, 50 bucks to create a website. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, broke House rules by tweeting (electronically, not narcotic-ly) from the floor, according to Urban Grounds. And Trail Blazers picks up on a Fox News blog about a comment by Lance Armstrong concerning running for governor in 2010.

Despite receiving nearly $900,000 in contributions from two big-time donors, Texas Democratic Trust PAC, established in fall 2005, has a really cruddy website, says Tex Parte Blog.

And Headline of the Week award goes to The Fire Ant Gazette for a culinary post titled "Choose rabbits with soft ears and paws."

This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. 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 week bloggers are all over the board on politic-centric posts. They're also talking about goings on in the government, making and breaking news and putting the spotlight on people they know (or at least know of).

* * * * *

Positioning, Fundraising, and Politicking

Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones will run for Kay Bailey Hutchinson's seat if the senior senator steps down to try for governor, reports Dallas Blog. More from Capitol Annex. Also on the KBH front, Annex says she's cooking up an event featuring the notorious Karl Rove.

Burnt Orange Report went on "strike" to raise $1,000 for Democrat Chris Bell's stab at the state Senate seat being vacated by Republican Kyle Janek. It took 12 hours to get the cash. "Thank you very much!" says Bell. (Seeing the success, Texas Cloverleaf is copying Burnt Orange, but with double the goal.)

FrontBurner, D Magazine's blog, says it's no surprise that Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, holds fundraisers in Las Vegas: He's raised more than $20,000 from professional poker players.

Liberal-leaning blog Brains and Eggs says don't give money to Barack Obama — give to down ballot Texas Democrats instead. And Half-Empty has the skinny on the new headquarters for Fort Bend County Democrats.

House District 52 hopeful Diana Maldonado chats with Off the Kuff, while Texas Politics, the Houston Chronicle's blog, has podcast interviews with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Senate hopeful Rick Noriega .

Texas Kaos highlights the congressional battle between GOP incumbent Michael McCaul and Democrat Larry Joe Doherty, saying that Doherty is doing well financially and that the district is trending blue. And Policy Spotlight takes a gander at the House District 55 landscape after the retirement announcement by state Rep. Dianne Delisi, R-Temple.

State Rep. Elliot Naishtat, D-Austin, calls mean rachel's bluff and finagles her into agreeing to design a website for him. Kaos has the second TV commercial released by Democrat congressional hopeful Michael Skelly. And Yeah, right, whatever has Senate hopeful Rick Noriega on video saying that Pres. George W. Bush compared oil to crack. (Bush actually said that America is "addicted" to oil.)

Texas on the Potomac, the Houston Chronicle's blog, lists the top recipients of campaign money from Houston's upper-crust River Oaks neighborhood, ZIP code 77019. And here's a video discussion among Trail Blazers bloggers about top topics in the state political realm.

* * * * *

Productivity Watch

Do you know how much time Texas judges spend on cases? After reading this Grits for Breakfast post, you will. Blue Dot Blues rounds up the action during Friday's after hours, GOP-only House session. And Ellis County Observer has issued an open challenge to public school teachers to debate vouchers.

Spotlight says the Texas Conservative Coalition will issue recommendations before the next session on changing the state's new business tax.

* * * * *

Seriously

KVUE's Political Junkie files a blog on obtaining chicken fried steak at the Capitol Building. Chronic, the Austin Chronicle's blog, brags about attending the GQ/Huffington Post party after Netroots Nation. And In the Pink Texas and a Dallas Morning News Trailblazer blogger team up for an online panel via "some new, exciting platform" called ooVoo.

If inmates riot in Mineral Wells, and there are no media around to report it, did it really happen? Texas Prison Bid'ness says yeah.

Website BlogNetNews.com ranks the Texas blogosphere according to "influence." (Burnt Orange is currently the most influential liberal blog; the Ellis County Observer is the head elephant.)

* * * * *

Miscellany

Texas GOP political director Hans Klingler hosts a YouTube spot about Todd Hunter, who's taking on state Rep. Juan Garcia, D-Corpus Christi. On-air personality Junkie is impressed with Klingler's performance.

In case you missed it on television, Austinist posts the video and photo released by the Texas Department of Public Safety in connection with the torching of the Governor's Mansion. Meanwhile, Texas Politics interviews a Texas Ranger about the arson.

Capitol Crowd is passing the hat on behalf of former "Person of the Week" Alex San Martin, whose apartment was destroyed in a fire.

Tex Parte Blog tells all about Juan A. Sepulveda , a San Antonio lawyer tapped to lead the Obama campaign in Texas.

And Harold Cook's lips will turn blue if we don't finally link to something he told our editor about just before said editor left town on vacation. Here's the link.

This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. 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.

Here's one for the political scientists and other mooks: former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia will be on the presidential ballot in Texas in November and the unaffiliated Ralph Nader won't be. Who'll get more votes — the lesser-known guy with his name on the page, or the better-known guy working in the dark?

Without being on the ballot, it's highly doubtful that Nader will have any juice in this year's elections, at least in Texas. Election folks with the Texas Secretary of State say only the Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians qualified for ballot listings in November. Nader can still get certified as a write-in candidate, which means only that they'll count his votes if he gets any (write-ins who don't get certified don't get their votes counted, which is why we'll never know how many people vote for Mickey Mouse every year).

Nader has been on the Texas ballot almost as much as the various George Bushes: As a Green Party candidate (with Winona LaDuke) in 2000 and as a write-in in 1996 and 2004 (LaDuke was his running mate in 1996; in 2004 it was Peter Miguel Camejo). His best showing was in 2000 — the only year he had a serious impact on a presidential race — when he got 137,994 votes in Texas. That's just 2.15 percent — not enough to move the earth here like he did in Florida that year. In his other two races in Texas, he was a little more than a rounding error, getting 4,810 votes in 1996 and 9,159 votes in 2004. In percentage terms, that's 0.08 percent and 0.12 percent, respectively. Not exactly brute force.

If the past three elections are a guide, Barr won't do much better. Harry Browne, the Libertarian candidate for president in 1996 and in 2000, got 0.36 percent of the vote each time, pulling 20,256 votes in the first round and 23,160 in the second. Michael Bednarik of Austin, the Libertarian standard-bearer in 2004, got 38,767 votes, or 0.52 percent, in Texas. (Third place in 1996 didn't go to Nader or to Browne, but to Dallasite Ross Perot Sr., who ran his second national race as an independent and got 378,537 votes — 6.74 percent.)

Democrat Joe Jaworski, challenging Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, made his first TV ads public. Here's a look:

Texas Democrats have been recruiting Libertarian candidates into state races for years. The conventional view is that a Libertarian takes more from a Republican than from a Democrat. In a close race, that can make all the difference.

The Republicans caught on, and got caught trying to talk some of the Libertarians off of the ballot. They may have fumbled, but their logic was sound: Several Democrats in the Legislature arguably won their seats only because a Libertarian was in their contest.

Most legislative seats were drawn in the last redistricting to elect Republicans. To bring the partisan margins in the House to current levels, Democrats have had to win in seats that were made for them to lose. Some are close enough that shaving three or four percentage points from the Republicans put a win within reach of the Democrats.

That's been going on for several years. Reps. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, and Mark Strama, D-Austin, beat incumbent Republicans in 2002 and 2004, respectively, in elections where Libertarians kept the major party candidates below 50 percent. But it made a big difference in 2006. In the last elections, Republicans lost a mess of seats they didn't expect to lose. In a half dozen contests decided by less than a majority, there was a Libertarian involved, and Democrats won five of the six. In the sixth race, the winning Republican changed parties a few months later. Libertarians were in the middle of four other races that, without them, might have looked quite different.

Lookit:

• Rep. Robby Cook, D-Eagle Lake, won reelection in 2006 by 415 votes over Republican Tim Kleinschmidt. Roderick Gibbs, the Libertarian in that race, got 1,283 votes and kept both major-party candidates under 50 percent.

• Republican Rep. Gene Seaman of Corpus Christi lost to Juan Garcia in 2006. Garcia got 48.3 percent of the vote. Libertarian Lenard Nelson got 5.58 percent.

• Democrat Joe Heflin beat Republican Jim Landtroop by 217 votes in 2006. Libertarian David Schumacher's 793 votes could have made the difference there.

• Rep. Toby Goodman, R-Arlington, lost his seat in 2006 to Paula Pierson, who got 49.6 percent. The Libertarian, Max Koch III, got 3.44 percent.

• Rep. Kirk England, then a Republican, squeezed out a victory over Democrat Katy Hubener in Grand Prairie two years ago. Libertarian Gene Freeman got 2.8 percent. Neither of the big-party candidates broke 50 percent. And England has since changed parties. He's running as a Democrat this year.

• In HD-118, Libertarian James Thompson got 1,701 votes in a race decided by 900 votes. Democrat Joe Farias of San Antonio got the win over George Antuna.

Sometimes the Libertarian doesn't have a spoiler role, but comes close enough to prove that a third name on the ballot can tighten up a race. Tip the table just a bit and all four of these could have gone another way:

• Paul "Blue" Story got 2.9 percent of the vote in a 2006 HD-11 race with Republican Larry Durrett and Democrat Chuck Hopson. Hopson cleared the 50 percent mark, but just barely. He got 51 percent.

• Valinda Bolton won election in her Austin race with 50.2 percent that same year. The Libertarian in that contest, Yvonne Schick, got 4.2 percent. Republican Bill Welch got sent home.

• Republican Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, was held to 50.4 percent in his last reelection bid, but Democrat Karen Felthauser didn't break 45 percent; 5.3 percent of voters went with Lillian Simmons, the Libertarian.

• Democrat Allen Vaught of Dallas beat Rep. Bill Keffer in '06, breaking into the majority by just 35 votes. Libertarian Chris Jones got 1,038 votes in that contest.

One theory both parties are testing this year starts with polls showing Republican voters becoming grouchy and apathetic. The GOP's favorability ratings, here and elsewhere, have slipped in the last several years and some voters still identify themselves as conservative but are less apt to say they're Republicans. That much is in the polls. This is the theory: A Republican in the voting booth who is not exciting about the GOP candidate still might not want to vote for a Democrat. The Libertarian candidate is a way to lodge a protest vote without backing a liberal.

The margin in the Texas House, assuming for now that two empty seats remain Republican, is 79 Republicans to 71 Democrats. Libertarians on the ballot aren't the only reason the numbers are so tight, but it's easy to see why Democrats want them in close contests and Republicans don't. It's as simple as winning and losing.