After his son and two others died in a horrific car wreck in 2004, former UT Regent Scott Caven Jr. set out to prove that his namesake, Scotty, wasn't to blame. He eventually persuaded the Texas Department of Public Safety to change its accident report — a rare feat: In the last five years, DPS has changed the final reports in fewer than 1 percent of fatal crash investigations.

If Thursday was Gov. Rick Perry’s day, and Friday belonged to Bill White, then today is a day for Kay Bailey Hutchison.

It's time to harvest the political speculations of the last several months: Democrats and Republicans have until January 4 to put their names on the ballots, or not, in anticipation of the March 2 primaries.

Your afternoon reading.

Robert Draper's long-awaited piece on the Republican primary is sure to be the talk of our little world.

Education has emerged as one of the more contentious fronts in the gubernatorial campaign, with Kay Bailey Hutchison this week releasing a barrage of school proposals and attacks on the status quo. But the differences between the candidates have more to do with execution than with design.

They certainly provide daily fodder for campaign news coverage, but there’s no guarantee that endorsements will translate to anything positive for a candidate — let alone an electoral victory.

With the Thanksgiving behind us, it’s time to put noses back to the grindstone — unless you are state Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown.

When students get back from Thanksgiving break, the problems with their education system may not be fixed yet — but there’s no need to worry because the gubernatorial candidates are on the case.

This holiday weekend, Democrats up and down the ballot are giving thanks for the prospect of a Bill White gubernatorial candidacy.

Is “eye-gougingly boring” the new “gubernatorial”?

In which I forgive the mayor of Houston for B.S.ing me last Friday.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said she wanted to keep fighting the “government takeover of healthcare” — and now she’ll get her chance.

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.

Your afternoon reading.

Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry have started their air war, and Democrat Farouk Shami — new to the race — starts on TV at the same time.

The Republican Governor's Association does NOT get involved in primaries, but...