Democrat Hank Gilbert made a big splash online with his entry into the gubernatorial race, though bloggers don't agree whether he's a leviathan or a guppy. Also making news in the blogosphere: other spots on the ballot, folks who want out of the Union and the continuing federal health care debate. A vision of former felons packing heat headlines the finale.

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Hank, Schieffer and Sord

Capitol Annex pronounces Gilbert, the Democrats' 2006 candidate for Ag Commissioner, as "the immediate frontrunner" in the gubernatorial primary. Burnt Orange Report gives a lukewarm assessment of their team, saying, "While [Gilbert] is not very well-known statewide, neither are the other current Democratic candidates." Elsewhere, the same blog sums up the field thusly, "humorist Kinky Friedman, unknown Mark Thompson, 2006 check-bouncer Felix Alvarado, and former 1970's State Rep. Tom Schieffer [whose] voting history for George W. Bush causes perpetual headaches for activists."

Greg's Opinion doesn't think Gilbert's five-figure fundraising is going to cut it in an eight-figure contest. In the comments section of that post, McBlogger, who worked for Gilbert in '06, says, "He's basically been running since the end of that cycle to keep name ID high and pull in as much earned media as possible." In their own web space, McBlogger says, "You think Glenn Beck is bad whipping up the teabaggers against health care? Wait until Hank starts whipping up every Texan the way he has Democrats."

Eye on Williamson thinks Gilbert's great, saying that fundraising could be an issue, but statewide Democrats can win spending less money than their Republican opponents. Brains and Eggs wants Dems to fill out the statewide slate, and mean rachel, who's no fan of Schieffer, says his state House endorsers trod too closely on the death of Ted Kennedy.

Off the Kuff analyzes the current state of the Democratic race for governor. The nut: "Basically, my thesis is that the Democratic donor class has finally started to wake up to the realization that there's an excellent chance Rick Perry will be on the ballot for another term in November, and that unless they get in the game, there's an even better chance he'll get it."

Because of his support for term limits for statewide officeholders, Gilbert isn't getting Dos Centavos' vote. The Houston Chronicle's Texas Politics has a podcast on the topic of Gilbert's entrance. And Purple Texas compares the Democratic field for governor to the 1988 presidential primary's "Gary Hart and the Seven Dwarves."

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Corps de Ballot

Democratic U.S. Senate contenders Bill White and John Sharp have split support among Austin-area state legislators, with Reps. Mark Strama, Patrick Rose and Dawnna Dukes on Team White, and Reps. Valinda Bolton, Donna Howard and Diana Maldonado (plus former Rep. Ann Kitchen) for Sharp. Meanwhile, Rep. Elliott Naishtat, who's been on the job longer than anyone else around, says he's still on the fence, but from his vantage point, White would be the "more likely" of the two to switch to the gubernatorial contest. Elsewhere, Burnt Orange has video of White on energy.

BurkaBlog repeats a rumor that an internal Kay Bailey Hutchison poll has her trailing Perry by 17 points. KBH's people say that's not true. Postcards shoots video of Perry denouncing the border wall. And Burka says U.S. Rep. Ron Paul would be the strongest Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, if he decides to run.

Rep. Helen Giddings, D-Dallas, wants at least one more term, the Dallas Morning News' Trail Blazers reports. Meanwhile, Whosplayin? brings word of a new, somewhat oxymoronic, organization for independent political candidates. And lest ye forget, 11 constitutional amendments are on the November ballot. The Travis Monitor lists them all here and posts about two of them, here and here, with longer looks at the rest to follow, presumably.

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More Likely to Secede

Making declarations like "We hate the United States" is a sure-fire way to scare away even the most right-wing of office-holding politicians, reports Texas Observer Blog from a pro-secessionist rally at the Texas Capitol. Texas Politics has video of the 500-strong "Sovereignty or Secession" rally, noting that GOP gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina stayed on the sovereignty side of the fence during the rally. (Perry says that's what he was trying to tell everyone back in April, according to Trail Blazers.)

And Headline of the Week award goes to Lone Star Diary for a post titled, "Texas can pull out of the union, legally!" that contains opinions proving that some people really do think that way.

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Health Bits

Texas Kaos attended a town hall meeting run by U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzales, but could only stand being there for 90 minutes of "muck." Meanwhile, Bay Area Houston reports, with disdain, on U.S. Rep. Pete Olson's town hall meeting. The blogger especially disliked the part where Olson, R-Sugar Land, used a young boy to illustrate a point on who lives and dies in a system with a public option for health insurance. And Potomac analyzes uninsurance statistics for Texas congressional districts. The diagnosis isn't good.

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Miscellany

Hearing that North Carolina's Supremes ruled in favor of some former felons' right to bear arms, Grits for Breakfast speculates that Texas, with its pro-Second Amendment judges and constitution, could "prove fertile ground for pursuing ex-felons' gun rights."

A Capitol Blog and his camera hopped an Amtrak from Austin to DFW, upon arrival gravitating to the grassy knoll and Dallas Cowboys stadium. Meanwhile, Mike Falick's Blog passes on a couple of resources for folks wanting to know what happened education-wise this past legislative session. And Potomac adds native Texan and former CBS News anchor Dan Rather to their stable of occasional contributors. His first column concerns the war in Afghanistan.

In case you haven't noticed, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram redesigned its website, noted here by PoliTex. Live from the first floor of the State Capitol, Redneck Mother promises to blog on rainy days. And Tex Parte Blog writes an obit for Robert C. "Bob" Flowers, former executive director of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, and lawyer on the losing end of Roe vs. Wade.

Observer shills for its four new blogs: Purple Texas by editor Bob Moser, La Linea by investigative reporter Melissa del Bosque, The Contrarian by associate editor Dave Mann and Forrest For The Tree by staff writer Forrest Wilder. Plus cartoons by Ben Sargent at Loon Star State.

Finally, how much does marijuana cost in Austin? Wonder no more, courtesy of Austin Post.

This edition of Out There was compiled and written by Patrick Brendel, who hails from Victoria but is semi-settled in Austin. We cherry-pick the state's political blogs each week, looking for news, info, gossip, and new jokes. The opinions here belong (mostly) to the bloggers, and we're including their links so you can hunt them down if you wish. Our blogroll — the list of Texas blogs we watch — is on our links page, and if you know of a Texas political blog that ought to be on it, just shoot us a note. Please send comments, suggestions, gripes or retorts to Texas Weekly editor Ross Ramsey.