While the debate about our energy future rages among the Presidential candidates, a similar debate is quietly taking place here in Texas. A few weeks ago, the Governor's Competitiveness Council released a draft Texas Energy Plan to guide Texas' energy decisions in coming years.

When Josh, Curtis, Karl and I founded the Blue about a year and a half ago, we never would have imagined that we would have risen so quickly in the Texas blog community. We've got all of you to thank for the success we've seen and hope to continue to see long into the future.

There are some big changes coming both for the Texas Blue and for yours truly.

Today, we mark 232 years since our nation declared its independence and launched the greatest experiment in democracy the world has ever known.

The 2008 TDP State Convention was not what I expected. The possibility existed for a massive Jets vs. Sharks standoff, a large rumble between Obama supporters and Clinton supporters that could go on for days in contentious protracted parliamentary procedure.

We've been tracking the campaign of Wendy Davis for state senator in District 10 pretty closely here at the Blue. Some recent polling data — some reliable, some not so much, but all of it good news — has come out that should have incumbent Senator Kim Brimer sweating over his seat.

The caucuses, resolutions, candidacies and debates of the 2008 Texas Democratic Party Convention, gladly interrupted by the televised endorsement of Senator Obama by Senator Clinton, linked Texans intimately with the First Continental Congress, with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

Throughout the primary season, the Texas Blue did not endorse. We wanted badly to remain neutral while still bringing you news and analysis throughout the primary season and then, later, throughout the extended presidential primary process as well. Yesterday the Democratic primary officially ended and Barack Obama became the Democratic Party's nominee. Today it is a point of pride for me to personally endorse Boyd Richie for Texas Democratic Party chair.

The response from the White House to Scott McClellan's book is not surprising in tone — the idea that the administration would produce people to controvert the bad stories in the book was a foregone conclusion. I will say, that for a book that wasn't supposed to be released until Monday, the speed and efficiency with which the Bush administration has moved to staunch the book's bad PR added up to a larger and more coordinated effort than I had expected.