Down the stretch they come.....

As early voting spools up the typical last-minute hilarity is running along at full speed, trailing candidates are throwing a bunch of mud at the wall in hope something sticks and the poor, old, overlooked (in their mind) media, is getting creative in their desire to have something that resembles a time when they actually mattered in elections. The big winner? Evan Smith of the Bill White Texas Tribune, a Colorado model organization that's doing a commendable job of framing the issues in the current election. More and more it seems as if the Trib and Harvey Kronberg of the Quorum Report are defining the narrative, while traditional pulp media outlets are following along in their wake.

This is a big deal, a very big deal if you're wondering what the future of Texas elections could look like going forward. More and more it's looking like the decision by the Perry campaign to bypass newspaper editorial boards and to not agree to a traditional debate is going to be a winning one, and that not receiving a single recommendation from them is going to be inconsequential. Think about that for a bit, and then think about why that's a big deal.