Scratch U.S. Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio from the fundraising team at a weekend event for Republican Pete Olson. He got tangled up in the bailout talks and votes and all, and won't be there. Olson is running against U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, in CD-22.
• U.S. Sen. John Cornyn raised $1.9 million during the last three months and entered the last month of the campaign with $7.2 million on hand. That's from a press release; reports will be filed with the Federal Election Committee next week. Cornyn is running for reelection against Democrat Rick Noriega, a state representative making his first statewide run.
• Republican Tim Kleinschmidt won the endorsement of the Texas wing of the National Federation of Independent Business. He's the Republican in the open seat HD-17 contest to replace Rep. Robby Cook, D-Eagle Lake. And he's promising that, if he's elected, he'll use "some of the project $10 billion state budget surplus to lower local property taxes and exempt more small businesses from the state business tax." You'll find some argument in Austin about those numbers, but the NFIB apparently likes the sentiment.
• What a difference a debate makes. Veep candidate Sarah Palin is scheduled to headline a fundraiser in San Antonio this weekend, and state Rep. candidate Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi is going. And he'll meet her. And he put out a press release telling us about it.
• Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyoming, is apparently an old friend of Bill Dingus' and endorsed the Midland Democrat's challenge to House Speaker Tom Craddick. Dingus has a Simpson video up on his website.
• This is what happens to people who work in gubernatorial press offices after those glory days are over. Ted Royer, who moved to sunny California after working for Gov. Rick Perry, is now working with movie people. And instead of spinning for politicians, he's spinning for political movies. He's trying to get us to write about a conservative spoof called An American Carol that opened in Texas this week. We're not gonna.
