speaker tom craddick

Gov. Rick Perry is expressing “disappointment in lapses” at the Department of Public Safety that allowed an unknown arsonist to torch the Governor’s Mansion earlier this month.

But the spark that set the building ablaze in the early hours of June 8 was set in the offices of the state’s top three political leaders, including Perry, who consistently confuse their radical anti-government ideology with their duty to safeguard the public.

Known as the oddest man in state government (emphasis on odd), Lt. Governor David Dewhurst is also frequently the odd man out among the three top Texas leaders.

The other two, Gov,. Rick Perry and Speaker Tom Craddick, have been able to dominate the agenda and make the Houston millionaire largely irrelevant.

Republican state lawmaker Nathan Macias of Bulverde lost his primary election last month to former New Braunfels mayor Doug Miller by the narrowest margin — a mere 17 votes after the recount.

Macias, elected to his first term in 2006 in a campaign bankrolled by voucher advocate Dr. James Leininger, is now suing to force a new election.

Former Travis County Sheriff and Republican State Representive Terry Keel says he’s too busy trying to elect Democrat Mindy Montford in the DA runoff to bother with helping his own sister-in-law, Republican Donna Keel, in her race against Democratic state rep Valinda Bolton.

Keel, the hardline Republican who also held the seat his sister-in-law is running for before retiring and then becoming Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick’s parliamentarian, told a group this weekend that the “number one priority right now is Mindy, not Donna.”

Campaign reports are due Monday in the second round of the Travis County DA’s race, and political observers are waiting to see if the candidates will come clean in reporting who they’ve taken money from — and in one case, given money to.