Home Sweet Home (And Aggreposting Once Again)

There's no better way to come back from a Tuesday road trip to Austin than to get back to work and realize there's time to be made up for. Such is life. A few links worth noting in the interim ...

» Chron: Election set May 12 for Houston council seat (Kristen Mack)
Not that much of a surprise here, though I don't exactly fault hizzoner for trying to save a few mill. I'm on the Mellisa Noriega bandwagon for this ride.

» New issue of Blueprint is out. Among the better and lengthier reads is that of Dan Gerstein's Connecticut lessons. I'll be among those welcoming Dan back to the blogosphere, also. Now if we can just get Kristen Powers back. The rest of this issue of Blueprint has a good deal to chew on. I've got Arthur Davis' and Harold Ford's waiting for some post-work reading. And, as always, Will Marshall is solid gold.

» Chron: Craddick re-elected speaker in landslide (Lisa Sandberg, Peggy Fikac)
When I strolled into work and saw the big massive headlines on the paper, you can very well imagine the laugh I had over the thought of certain folks viewing the Chronicle as a "liberal" paper. The "landslide" they refer to is referenced over at the Quorum Report coming down to one member unable to walk from Craddick to Pitts. Sure, it's a landslide in the final vote ... after Pitts withdrew. But it's a landslide sorta like Hubert Vo won in a landslide back in 2004. Pity the Chronicle missed a great story and went with flattering Tom Craddick instead. The Austin American-Statesman went with "Craddick Prevails," (and the DMN had a minor variant of that) which is fine enough I suppose. The FWST ran with "Craddick Wins Power Struggle" which is more like it. But which is it, though ... prevailing? ... struggling? ... or a freakin' landslide?

As for me, I got the news while the Borris Miles Convoy was departing the Capitol. Color me ambivalent. As much as I'd like to think a more bipartisan speaker might be great, there's something to be said for letting Craddick, Dewie & Perry build up the demand for change just a bit more over the next four years.

UPDATE: Gardner Selby has one take on the Speaker's race that's um .... interesting, I guess.

» Oh, and the Pres has a speech of some import tonight. It's shaping up to be one that'll undo what little he has going for him. Froomkin here, here and here, has a decent rundown on the news coverage of it.

UPDATE: Tom Bevan has some preview-excerpts of the President's speech.