Not much seemed to be cooking in Austin throughout the morning. The news mostly concerned the post-game on the Speaker's Race, and various MSM analyses of what happened, or what it all means.

We have a new Who's Blue? for you today, this time featuring an interview with newly elected State Representative Valinda Bolton. You can check it out here.

I received this letter written by Representative Jim Dunnam and thought our readers might like to see it.

6:03 pm
Here comes the record vote with Craddick as the only nominee for Speaker.
Results: 121 - 27. Craddick is back for two more years.

Wrapping this up now - comments welcome.

6:06
Tom Craddick is now officially the Speaker of the House. Bonus points to Rep. Richard Raymond, who had the guts to speak out against Craddick and his scare tactics in his objection to an otherwise uncontested election. That's it for the Speaker's race, so that's it for me. Thanks for following along, everybody.

5:59
The passing of HR 34 and 35 took a few hours to get through. In about 45 seconds, those two house resolutions were just wiped away. There's a certain irony in that.

5:45

Yesterday, I posted the YouTube video from the Craddick Austin Club party on Sunday night. I thought it was interesting for journalistic / intelligence purposes - here is footage with immediacy that chronicles attendees to a party thrown by one side against the other in a legislative leadership race. Other progressives took offense to the attendance of Democrats, even those already known and acknowledged to be in Craddick's camp - so much so that the term "primary opponents" began floating around.

Pena called it last week but I thought that was too early. Burka did it late this afternoon, and now we're within 24 hours, so it feels less uncertain. Both have called it for Craddick.

Last night, January 7th, Fred Baron threw a fundraiser for Democratic Presidential nominee John Edwards at his home in Dallas. Fred Baron was the Finance Chair for John Edwards' in the 2004 elections for President and will be again during his race this go-round. Not only is Baron a dedicated fundraiser for the Democratic party, but he is also an expert political strategist who has just purchased a home in North Carolina to better assist Edwards' in his battle.

Today we have a new feature from Hale County Democratic Party chairman James Belk, who examines how Joe Heflin managed to keep former Speaker Pete Laney's seat in the Democratic column in 2006.

Craddick had a bad weekend - after introducing his new, creepy pledge card and engaging in one last knock-kneed run for the sun on commitments, he started to lose some support in a very public way.