The political season has officially begun here in Texas with the state GOP convention occurring this weekend in Dallas. The Dems get together next weekend in El Paso. The Rs are trying to figure out how they can win without Dubya's coattails, a nontrivial matter since Rick Perry and Carole Keeton Rylander both eked out wins in 1998. They'll have plenty of advantages this year but no guarantees.

Of course, the Dems continue to be unable to articulate why they're a better choice. We received a Tony Sanchez For Governer leaflet on our porch the other day. The themes he highlights are Education, Health Care, and Bringing Business Experience to Government. Let's see, Bush actually acheived some education reform, and HMO reform legislation passed on his watch (against his will, of course, but he still claimed credit for it). It's kind of amusing to realize that Business Experience is a claim that the Democrat can make against the career-politician Republican, but with all the business disasters lately I wonder how much of a plus that is. My point here is that Sanchez, like Ron Kirk, is running on Bush's themes. I still fail to see how they can hope to compete in that area, since Bush himself will be giving visible support to their opponents. Can someone explain this to me?

Kirk, meanwhile, is still floundering around with a charge that he's reversed himself on support for making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Please tell me again why we have a Democrat running if all he's going to do is support Republican policies? I really hope Kirk is learning from these mistakes, because if he's not he's going to get his ass handed to him in November.