Houston Mayor Bill White hasn't even announced yet that he's running for governor. But state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, is endorsing him.

Earlier this month, Rick Perry helped push a so-called RINO — Republican In Name Only — off the congressional ballot in New York, only to see the Conservative Party candidate he backed lose to a Democrat. But that kind of us-versus-them narrative was missing from the just completed Republican Governor's Association meeting in Bastrop County.

Multi-part stories from Ramshaw and Grissom and Stiles on mental health services for detained immigrants and on payday lenders who provide exorbitantly priced credit to people with nowhere else to turn... Twitter, word clouds and the race for governor — a Stiles joint... Farouk Shami is in and Hu was there to watch... Philpott went to Bastrop for a gather of Republican governors... Rapoport finds a State Board of Education that's trying to control itself... and we have the skinny on legislative races that are likely to be competitive (only about 5 percent of the races on the ballot). It's the best of The Texas Tribune from November 14 to 20, 2009.

Ready to welcome U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry into your living room?