Burnt Orange Report

A few mindless thoughts

By Jim Dallas

First, it occurred to me that I've had the chance to exchange words with both Kinky Friedman (after his commencement speech to the liberal arts grads of December 2003) and Chris Bell (in one of the blogger conference calls). You can't really squeeze too much psycho-analysis out of a couple of minutes, but I think both of them are good guys based on quick impressions. So it somewhat irks me to see the elbow-throwing coming out "on the Internets", but I guess that's politics.

Second, with all the talk about who's running for governor (which, let's face it, is not the most important office in the state of Texas), why has there been so little talk about the Lieutenant Governor's race? Granted, David Dewhurst has fewer black marks against them than Perry, and aside from the fining of the ABQ Senators, etc., has not been the most excessively partisan person in Austin (at least publicly).

Nonetheless, I sincerely doubt that most Texas Democrats would like to see Dewhurst get a free ride next year. So there's a real mystery (and if you're of the persuasion that Democrats are institutionalist wimps, I suppose a real scandal) for you.

Sure, we've all heard a name or two dropped in rumor. But the Democratic Primary is now about seven months away. One would hope to hear something a little, you know, substantive by now. If you're hearing things I'm not, I want to know about it!

Thirdly, it warmed my heart to see Bill Kelly get some kudos for his work on Peter Brown's campaign on Carl Whitmarsh's mailing list this morning, as well as a note about Giovanni Garibay getting elected to a spot on the DNC. A round of applause for Bill and Gio!