Chris Bell's newest commercial is his first to gun directly for Rick Perry. In "Sick," Bell takes down the guv's cozy relationship with TXU and its disastrous health and environmental effects on the state. (At least Perry got the world's largest bong out of the agreement.)

Watch "Sick" below:

It’s been a tough couple weeks for independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. For starters, his campaign has been fielding a handful of nasty e-mails regarding the Kinkster’s health care plan, dubbed TexasCare, which he unveiled Oct. 18. Essentially, the TexasCare plan would offer subsidized health coverage for all Texans, paid for on a sliding scale – thus, single folks sans kids, for example, would pay the most for coverage.

Republicans found their voice again this week, and boy is it shrill. It all started when Sen. John Kerry told some college students to "study hard [and] make an effort to be smart... If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Republicans demanded that Kerry apologize for insulting the troops, but Kerry said he was actually insulting Republicans for getting us stuck in Iraq. Seizing on a pointless excuse to make hay out of the Kerry dustup, Gov. Rick Perry called on Democrat Chris Bell to condemn Kerry for his "demeaning statements." If Bell doesn't condemn Kerry's comments, Perry warned, than it must mean that Bell agrees with Kerry. Consider Bell in agreement that Republicans got us stuck in Iraq.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge T. John Ward issued a preliminary injunction blocking state Attorney General Greg Abbott from what plaintiffs, including the Texas Democratic Party, described as overzealous enforcement of a ballot-handling law.

The plaintiffs had sued Abbott because he had prosecuted 13 individuals for possessing the ballots of other voters. The six citizen plaintiffs claim that they were doing nothing more than helping elderly friends or relatives get their ballots into the mail. Abbott contends they were committing voter fraud.

Have the voters of Virginia finally woken up and realized that they don't want a flaming racist for their senator? After weeks of polls showing George Allen (son of the famous Redskins coach; maybe the racism was ingrained in him by that team name) slightly ahead, now they're showing him slightly behind. An average of five polls on Electoral-Vote.com is showing Democrat Jim Webb ahead, 49%-47%. I presume one of those is a CNN poll yesterday showing Webb 50%, Allen 46%. Those numbers could be affected further by a video yesterday showing Allen supporters tackling a heckler and slamming him to the ground. I don't know how that will play with Virginians, but to my eyes it looked mighty thuggish, more befitting the third world or eastern Europe that a democracy.

It's anybody's guess which party will come out on top Tuesday, but it will hinge on five races in particular: Montana, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, and New Jersey. Also worth bearing in mind: As of this writing, Electoral-Vote.com is predicting a 50-50 split, but that site counts Bernie Sanders as a Democrat. Technically, he's an independent, but he always caucuses with the Dems.

Now this is some funny shit, from the Chris Bell campaign:

Background: in 1990, as co-chair of the Clayton Williams campaign, Carole Strayhorn staged an "Ann Watch" outside the State Treasury, wanting to make sure that Richards was putting in her time as State Treasurer. AWR (Ann Willis Richards) Women and Men for Bell will monitor the Comptroller's Office to make sure Strayhorn is now doing her job.

Good luck guys.

Times and location below the fold.

Travis County's early voting numbers continued rising this week, reaching new highs of 7,654 on Monday and 7,757 on Tuesday. The grand total now stands at 52,880 early voters, plus 4,418 mail-in ballots, for a total of 57,298, or 10.31% of the county's registered voters. If you have an office betting pool going (and if you do, oh my god you're a geek), I'm predicting a 45% total turnout in the end. Early voting ends Friday. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 7.

The precisely-monikered AustinContrarian raises an interesting point today regarding Prop 5, the affordable housing bond. Our author thinks they will do some good for the city's oft-overlooked (umm, more like invisible) renters, but additionally, "will give the City Council the cover it needs to do the right thing on housing... Proposition 5 will allow Council members to say they support both dense redevelopment and affordable housing. It will be easier for them to approve infill projects without being accused of hurting the low-income."

I'm not sold on the Contrarian's insistence that the only way to keep prices affordable is by tearing down admittedly "cheap housing" to make room for bigger infill projects that will supposedly drive prices down by keeping up with demand (demand I just don't see– I'd like to see condo occupancy rates downtown in a few years, once everything is built). However, this nugget about the Austin Neighborhoods Council bears repeating:

You can count on the neighborhood groups, who hijack the affordability cause whenever it suits their purpose, to keep affordability front and center. (To my knowledge, ANC has not endorsed Proposition 5, which is significant considering its public handwringing over affordable housing.)

Good question. Any answers, ANC?

This article about the League of Conservation Voters was previously published in our paper version of the paper, but it bears repeating here as you head for the voting booth. If environmental issues are key in helping you make picks for Congress and Senate, the LCV scorecard is mighty illuminating.:

Enviros Say Doggett Shines, Others ... Stink
Just in time for the November elections, the League of Conservation Voters has issued its voting scorecard for the second session of the 109th Congress (that is, the 2006 session). Unfortunately for environment-minded Texans, it is depressingly similar to previous scorecards.