I'll be scarce the next couple of days as I try to deal with whatever it is that's causing my pain (maybe kidney stones, but no confirmation until I get an abdominal CT either Thursday or Friday). But I have a bunch of stuff on tap to blog, so I'll quickly spit it out so I can go back to curling up in a ball and wishing I was dead.

• Rasmussen. Dates unknown. Likely votes. MoE 4.5% (No trend lines)

  Cornyn (R) 53
  Noriega (D) 30

  Cornyn (R) 52
  Watts (D) 28

  Convention wisdom says that Cornyn is safe, above the dangerous 50 percent mark. And at this point, he is. The question over the next months will be if Texas Democrats can start hitting Cornyn and get him under the 50 percent mark. Most incumbents with these kinds of numbers usually stay safe. But a people-powered campaign can move mountains as we saw in Montana and Virginia last year.

• Not to mention that Texas is now the site of the latest party-switching state legislator. With states like Kansas, Missouri, and now Texas hosting big party switches, you can sense momentum swinging back to the Democrats. Texas political maven Glenn Smith puts the switch in the proper context:

  When the GOP began its takeover bid in Texas, it started by recruiting moderate Democrats to switch parties. This began around 1984. Their argument was spurious at the time -- that the Democratic Party had moved too far to the left. That was always more spin that fact, but nonetheless, the migration of Democratic state representatives to the Republican Party was, sad to say, history shaping.

  Now history is on the other foot, so to speak. The GOP HAS become a party of extremists, turning their backs on Texans from all walks of life. Middle class families forced to borrow huge sums of money to pay public college tuition, loans that turned out to be little more than kickback schemes. Hundreds of thousands of children without health care, millions of Texas uninsured or underinsured. Public education long forgotten. The physical infrastucture crumbling, state parks underfunded and public land being given away to privateers.

  The Texas House is now 80-70 Republican, six seats away from switching control. It was 88-62 in 2002 after the first round of redistricting.

• Arianna runs around screaming about an ad. In a newspaper.

  Oops. My mistake. She's writing about Republicans running around screaming. About an ad. In a newspaper.

• NE-Sen: Former Gov. and current Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns is in. The GOP primary will be bloody as heck, so fun for all. What kind of governor would quit the helm at his state to be a flunkie in the Bush Administration? Mike Johanns, that's who.
• Bob Novak, in his weekly email newsletter, gets it:

  The failure of the Petraeus report to significantly alter the political climate on Iraq is bad news for Republicans in the 2008 campaign. The assessment by GOP insiders is that continued casualty lists in the election year will be fatal. President George W. Bush's statement offered little hope for relief.

  So why didn't so many Beltway pundits? And why didn't the New York Times?

  There were signs on Friday that Mr. Bush's address might have succeeded in shifting some sentiment. The Washington Post's editorial page, which has clung to a middle ground on the war, described Mr. Bush's strategy as "the least bad plan" and one that would be "less risky than the alternatives." Nielsen Media Research reported Friday night that the president's speech drew a combined 28.8 million viewers across nine broadcast networks and cable channels.

  You see? The Washington Post's editorial board -- which hasn't clung to a "middle ground" but has cheerleaded the war from Day One -- is like, all the people in country! And while yes, a bunch of people watched Bush's speech, in cable land, where they played the Democratic response, more people watched the response. Then, Bush's poll numbers fell to new lows.

  Brilliant insight, NY Times... It's funny how the Beltway Media continues to root for a Bush comeback that no one else in this country is going to let happen.

• Republicans hate black people. There's no other reason for the DC Voting Rights Bill being derailed in the Senate. It's not politics -- Utah would've gotten an additional seat as well.
• NV-03: Dems have a candidate to take on endangered Rep. Jon Porter (R).