Katy bar the door! The ever-increasing role that the Big Oil meme plays in all levels of our political system took a surprising turn last week in Tennessee. In the Republican primary for Tennessee's First Congressional District, incumbent freshman Representative David Davis lost to Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe 49%-50%. What was the primary reason for Representative Davis' loss? He took money from oil PACs.

Riffing off J-Michael's item about the closeness of the Presidential race in Texas, the fine folks over at Pollster.com have a great new feature running that will be like catnip for Presidential election junkies.

Pollster.com now has a front page national map with the polling averages state-by-state for the 2008 Presidential race, 2008 Senate races and 2008 Governor's races.

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has been indicted on seven counts of making false statements in his financial filings.

Radovan Karadzic, the former President of the rump Bosnian Serb government and indicted war criminal, was arrested Monday in Serbia.

I was one of many people who thought that perhaps this was the election where the fundamentalist base of the Republican Party finally divorces itself from a "not conservative enough" Republican candidate. But there's been plenty of evidence that the relationship between Senator John McCain and the leading luminaries of the fundamentalist movement like the leader of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, and Pastor John Hagee of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church is as strong as ever.

It's no secret that Governor Ricky Perry and Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim are political friends. What never ceases to amaze, however, is the extent to which Pilgrim has Perry in his pocket.

Senator John McCain does have one indisputable lead in his race with Senator Barack Obama for the White House. It's just not a lead that he's going advertise, nor one I imagine we'll hear much about from his cheerleading corps in the media. John McCain is the most absent Senator in the 110th Congress, having missed 61.8% of the votes so far. To put that in perspective, Senator Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota), who took several months off to recover from a brain hemorrhage, has voted more often than John McCain.

Earlier today, Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy, one of the biggest players in the exploration and production of natural gas in the Barnett Shale here in North Texas, announced the launch of an online video channel, www.shale.tv. Shale.TV is scheduled to go live this Fall and Chesapeake also announced today that veteran Dallas/Fort Worth news anchor Tracy Rowlett has signed on to anchor the digital channel and serve as managing editor.

Frivolous lawsuits? Check. Judicial activism? Check. In Tarrant County, State Senator Kim Brimer is hard at work on the non-campaign trail once more.

Democratic candidate Wendy Davis spoke to supporters yesterday on the steps of the Tarrant County Courthouse in Fort Worth after filing a response to State Senator Kim Brimer's lawsuit contesting her eligibility to run against him. Her speech included this hard-hitting quote:

"He thinks this lawsuit will hide his 20 years of failed leadership," Davis said. "To the contrary, it has highlighted it."

CNN is reporting that Virginia Senator Jim Webb has officially removed himself from VP consideration. With former Senator John Edwards committed to debating Karl Rove at least once in late September and Senator Webb removing himself from consideration, do you think that this increases the likelihood we will see an Obama-Clinton ticket?