I'm exhausted.

As I'm sure most of you picked up on, I took a break from writing a few months before the election -- one more guy on the ground, right? Then November came, and I as everyone else needed some recovery time. But watching cable news for that next month or two sucked away any chance at recovery; the ridiculous quantity of poor punditry, of Republican talking points and Democrats second-guessing Democrats, was just too frustrating. Then a new year comes, and with it a renewed spirit and the desire to address all the burgeoning issues that come from an at times merely misinformed, and at times downright malfeasant elected Republican majority.

And then -- Arizona happens.

Bill White just closed out tonight's convention with a well-written, well-presented speech. I would give you some greatest hits from it, but the Bill White campaign apparently was looking to save me the trouble with the press release they just put out giving the entire speech. Presser after the jump.

EDIT: Patrick McLeod gives us a wee-hours rundown of tonight's events.

We have our Election Tracker sidebar up tonight, following a few of the biggest primary races tonight, but as always, there are turning out to be some sleepers and some surprises tonight. Click through to read more about these races.

Today may mark the day that comprehensive health insurance reform lives or dies in the United States, as the President hosts a summit with congressmen from both parties at Blair House starting at 9am CST today to try and work out a bill that will pass both the House and Senate. And we've got it for you here, liveblogged after the jump.

I hope you guys are watching this -- you're not going to get to see another one.

The two presumptive frontrunners for the Democratic spot in this year's governor race, Farouk Shami and former Houston mayor Bill White, are debating in Fort Worth tonight. The debate is hosted by KERA, the local public access station, and can be caught on TV, radio, and on the Texas Debates website.

My opinions after the jump.

Two debates for Republican gubernatorial candidates in one month -- and Debra Medina in both of them? Who would've guessed that two months ago?

Well, as much as the upstart candidate must be loving the earned media, Democrats are likely equally excited about seeing Senator Hutchison and Governor Perry trade blows again this evening. So we'll be liveblogging tonight's debate here, starting shortly before the debate time of 7pm. Come join us after the "read more" jump!

Looking for coverage of the second debate, held January 29? Go to this link.

I think my first reaction to tonight's debate was that if this is what we have to look forward to in the Republican primary, political fact-checkers are on the gravy train. There was so much unsubstantiated he said/she said in this debate that there will likely be a feeding frenzy over parsing the "facts" the candidates were throwing out.

That being said, I'm going to have to give the win in the debate to Senator Hutchison. I'll tell you why in a second -- but first I have to say that I *want* to give the win to Debra Medina.

Looking for coverage of the second debate, held January 29? Go to this link.

No, they're not Democrats. But I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in what the three Republican candidates for Governor have to say about the state of the state and how they plan to get us out of the mess they got us into. Besides, the Tea Partiers are represented — how could this not be fun?

You know, if there's anything I've learned from watching Texas politics for the last couple of decades, it's that how the field looks before filing starts doesn't tend to have much in common with how it looks by the end of the filing period. So I tend to save prognostications for after some of the inevitable mayhem has hit the fan.

And now some of it has. Ross Ramsey, of Texas Weekly fame and now with the Texas Tribune, is reporting that gubernatorial candidate Tom Schieffer will be dropping out of the race this afternoon and endorsing Bill White.

OK, OK. We know. It's an off-year election. You forgot to vote early. That's OK -- you can redeem yourself today. (Don't worry too much about voting on election day instead of early; the lines will probably be embarrassingly short anyway.)

What? You don't know what the issues on the ballot are, either? No worries: we've got you covered.