As you know, I'm very focused on the Democrats' chances to win a majority in the State House, which would be an end to the dictatorial reign of Tom Craddick as House Speaker. Key to those chances are a handful of races in Harris County, with the race for the open seat in HD144, formerly held by Robert Talton, being one of the hottest. Talton, for all his right-wing craziness, had become an anti-Craddick stalwart last session, so taking over his seat isn't just desireable, it's defense. The Democratic hopeful for that seat is Joel Redmond, who's been a bit of a mystery man to some of us outside his district, but for a good reason: He's been spending all his time in the district, doing all the hard work of knocking on doors and calling potential supporters. As he says in my interview with him (MP3), as of Labor Day he'd visited half of the 40,00 homes with registered voters in them. That's pretty impressive, and if you give the interview a listen, I think you'll find that Redmond himself is as well. I was pleased to finally meet him, as I'd heard plenty of good things about him, and I was more pleased to see that he lived up to what I'd been hearing. Let me know what you think.

PREVIOUSLY:

Vince Ryan, Harris County Attorney
Chris Bell, SD17
Loren Jackson, Harris County District Clerk
Brad Bradford, Harris County District Attorney
Diane Trautman, Harris County Tax Assessor
Michael Skelly, CD07
David Mincberg, Harris County Judge
Debra Kerner, HCDE Trustee
Diana Maldonado, HD52
Eric Roberson, CD32
State Rep. Juan Garcia, HD32
Ernie Casbeer, HD59
Joe Moody, HD78
Chris Turner, HD96
Robert Miklos, HD101
State Rep. Dan Barrett, HD97
Wendy Davis, SD10