Good morning everyone,
I woke up to a decent amount of snowfall which is a bit of a pain because a recent move left me without an ice scraper for the car. (I swear I took one along with a shovel, where did they go?) For those of you in the sunnier parts of the country we have invented an entire industry of snow removing equipment to ensure our bodies and property are secure in this long stretch of freezing cold weather.

Anyway here is your roundup:

Michelle Mittelstadt and Eun Kyung Kim write in the Houston Chronicle looking into politics not as usual concerning recently elected (and defeated) Shelley Sekula-Gibbs’ who won a special election vote to replace Tom Delay in the House until January but lost the election to keep the seat when the new Congress starts its session. Not long after coming to Congress a good chunk of her staff walked out for mysterious reasons and many see her hopes of an ‘08 run for the seat as lost.

Ronald Brownstein writes about the changing electoral map in the L.A. Times.

William H. Calhoun writes about the lack of conservatives potentially running as Republican’s in 2008 and looks at the potential for third-party conservative candidates in the Magic City Morning Star.

David A. Lieb from the Associated Press looks at some 2006 results from Missouri and how it played against conventional voting wisdom.