Daily News Roundup, 12/10/07: Early Voting, Again

Early voting is underway in the House District 97 special election in Tarrant County.

Democrat Dan Barrett has put together a good campaign effort in his run to take over the seat that Anna Mowery vacated earlier this year. Mark Shelton is your usual North Texas Republican:

House Speaker Tom Craddick: Shelton criticized those who tried to overthrow Craddick at the end of the legislative session this year and said Craddick has his support. Barrett said that the House needs a new speaker and that Craddick prevents members from properly representing their districts. "I'm tired of the politics of intimidation," he said.

Early voting runs until Friday.

Do you remember when, right after the last legislative session, Attorney General Greg Abbott was asked to rule on the extent of the Texas House Speaker's power? It seems like a forever ago, but that ruling is now forthcoming: the deadline is Saturday. I think it will be informative to see how the politics of this plays out, and one can probably discern a great deal about the condition of the state's Republican leadership by how Abbott and Craddick interact over this matter.

I hope if you were planning on voting in Texas' presidential primary, you want to vote for John Edwards. Edwards is the only candidate so far to file to run for President in Texas on either side. I'm sure the other top-tier candidates will be joining him any day now, and they have until January 2 to file. Still though, it is kind of funny to think that we only have one official candidate at the moment.

In other presidential news, the long-touted Oprah appearances began in earnest this weekend, and the media has termed the tour "Oprahpalooza." The earned media is great for Obama, but I have heard more than a few people wonder if this will translate Oprah's viewing audience into votes. My take is that I'm not sure. It will probably help Obama, but I don't know that it works out to a direct transfer from viewers to voters. I think this is another effort in a long chain of efforts by Democratic campaigns to capture the female vote. That being said, if Oprah can deliver quantifiable votes in numbers approaching her viewing audience, then you should join me in welcoming her as our new Overlord.

After several weeks of mercilessly beating on each other, the GOP presidential field took it easy during their Spanish language debate last night, treading a fine line between acting tough on immigration and further alienating the Hispanic vote. That everyone (save for Huckabee, who is turning into the Campaign Trail Terminator) looked uneasy and didn't really have the social juices flowing is not much of a surprise. It is difficult to sit comfortably at someone's table when you've been throwing rhetorical knives at them for months. The best opportunity for entertainment begged off, though: Tancredo didn't show.

Recently the White House has been critical of Congress, saying that they won't send President Bush important legislation on spending to move some necessary processes along. Upon hearing news that Congressional Democratic leadership was preparing to send over a bill that would take care of many spending priorities at once, Bush's budget manager immediately said that the President would veto it. Now who's holding up the budget train?