Julie Mason at the Chron's Beltway Confidential points out that "I'm going to run a clean campaign" McCain officially put out the first negative ad of the presidential race a few days ago.

Oh, boy. Lawrence Lessig just stepped onstage for the afternoon keynote, and he starts out by saying he's dedicating it to Speaker Pelosi "with all due respect - or morethan the position deserves." He's also given out the refrain of "9%" -- as of yet undefined. This is bound to be contentious. Liveblogging in the comments, as usual.

Chris Turner didn't just raise a ton of money for his state representative race in HD 96 against incumbent Republican Bill Zedler. He also outraised incumbent Republican Bill Zedler, $240,166 to $206,781. He's also winning in cash on hand, $173,334 to $157,555. The full press release is available after the jump.

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.

This whole "Democrats outraising Republicans" thing is becoming a trend. Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez is Winning the Money War against Republican challenger Lowell Cannaday, and the Familiarity War, too. Gromer Jeffers fills you in.

Republican State Senator Florence Shapiro of Plano announced that she's going to explore taking over Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's seat after KBH leaves to do whatever she ends up doing, which is a departure set for 2012 or sooner. (You can count on sooner.)

Chris Turner just sent this out, in re: the piles of money he raised through June:

...when we file our campaign finance report with the Texas Ethics Commission tomorrow, we will report having raised over $200,000 in the first six months of this year!

I encourage you to listen to our interview with Chris and visit his campaign website.

Karl Rove ignored a congressional subpoena last Thursday, refusing to appear before a judiciary subcommittee. As lawmakers waited to question him over the politically motivated firings of US Attorneys. Karl Rove, conveniently enough, was not even in the United States.

President Bush is going to terminate the executive ban on drilling for oil off the shores of the United States today. That alone isn't enough to get this party started, as Congress still has to decide to undo its own prohibition of the practice. Read all about it here.

Bob Dole did some ads for Viagra, but the very mention of the product (or questions about health care policy) has the potential for making John McCain look very, very uncomfortable: