The polls keep coming in for the 2008 presidential election, and even though I am an avid believer that polls mean nothing this far out and can't possibly tell you anything, I keep reading them and thinking about them.

This might be the big one.

As was more or less expected, Melissa Noriega won her city council election in Houston handily, 55% to 45%. There had been some sweating and fretting about turnout, and rightly so — while you never know which way that pendulum is going to swing in most elections, in a special (read: runoff) election for a municipal race you can almost always count on it being down. In this race, with turnout reported to be around 3%, every bit mattered. Our congratulations go to Melissa.

Hey, did you know that sometimes there's something wrong with The Politico?

There's been no shortage of discussion over Texas Monthly's Best and Worst Legislators list. Lo, there was much rejoicing in the streets (for example) over Democratic State Senator Kirk Watson's selection as Rookie of the Year, and rightly so.

Watch out, everyone! Republicans have discovered the Internet!

John Edwards was in Austin yesterday, and available accounts show that the event at Scholz Garten went well.

The Dallas Mayoral race is very close, according to the Dallas Morning News. Apparently, Tom Leppert is ahead of Democrat Ed Oakley 47%-45%, and the election may depend — believe it or not — on turnout.

Yesterday Senate Republicans prevented the no-confidence vote on Alberto Gonzales from happening. It seems like that would be something resembling a victory for President Bush, but the media doesn't think so.

Former Congressman Martin Frost has persisted as a center of Democratic political power since his redistricted loss to Pete Sessions, and now he is lending his clout as the new president of America Votes, a coordinating body dedicated to the mobilization of many of the nation's top liberal and labor organizations.