8:40 A debate on Sunday morning? If there was any question that the election cycle's in full swing, this should get rid of doubt. The eight Democratic candidates for President will be appearing this morning on a special edition of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos in preparation for the Iowa Caucus. You can also catch this debate after 3pm on ABC's web site, or at 7:30pm when it gets rebroadcast on C-SPAN.

I love Iowa! If you have not experienced campaigning in this great state you are deprived. It is amazing to me that the next President of the United States will in all probability be determined by a group of caucus-goers numbering fewer than the amount of votes in the average congressional election.

We are kicking off another recurring series here on the Texas Blue today. On The Trail will feature dispatches from Texas Blue writers as they travel with campaigns, both local and national. Our inaugural set of On The Trail blogs star Texas Blue publisher Curtis Clinesmith as he travels Iowa with the John Edwards For President campaign. We hope you enjoy On The Trail. — George Nassar, editor

We've got some clarifications and some advice from our readers in this week's Texas Blue Mailbag.

Just a few weeks after our launch, Cody Yocom produced some work on Nick Lampson's race in 2008 and looked at who might fill the field in the Republican primary.

For this episode of On The Record, we speak with Norma Narramore, Committeewoman for Senate District 1, member of the Election Committee for the Texas Silver Haired Legislature (www.txshl.org), and Titus Democratic County Chair.

You'd think that after a few years in Iraq, even Republican legislators would know to be hesitant about making a short-term lull in violence out to be some sort of victory. Sadly, we have a reminder of that lesson today. A Yadizi community in the Kurdish area of Iraq fell victim to a quadruple bombing that left at least 500 people dead, and another 320 wounded.

No matter what you think, the biggest story in the last 24 hours — and probably in a much larger span of time than that — is the news, reported here by the Washington Post, that the Bush administration is going to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps "as a 'specially designated global terrorist.'"

It seems that just about everyone's running some piece on their hindsight insight about Rove's resignation, but hey — I have
editorial privilege, and I want to lead off with this: I guess that overextended wars we never should have been in can temporarily take the news eye away from petty, non-democracy-saving things like the economy, but eventually they'll come back to bite you.

This is a weird little tale that comes to us from TPM Muckraker: the Republican National Committee has started sending out letters to people saying that "a recent audit of your Party affiliation turned up some irregularities." The letters then ask for money.