Byron is helping to lead the charge to give support to State Rep. Paul Sadler, who is running in a special election on January 20 to replace the retiring Bill Ratliff. Sadler is the only Democrat on the ballot, and if he wins it's a pickup for the Dems, making the Senate balance 18-13. He's a strong candidate with a good legislative record, so I'm happy to give him what little support I can.

You can make a donation to his campaign if you'd like to help. I'm going to add that link to my sidebar along with ones for Richard Morrison and Stephanie Herseth, which I'd unaccountably forgotten to do before now.

I keep promising to do that blog post on what Official Political Party blogs like the Yellow Dog Blog ought to do in order to get a return on their investments, but until I get around to it, something they ought to do is help promote candidacies like Sadler's and Morrison's. If there's one lesson we've learned from the 78th Lege, it's that politicians who aren't on your own ballot can have a pretty big effect on your life, including who your representatives are. It matters to all of us how many Democrats there are in Austin and in DC, and that's a message that should be broadcast on every channel.