I’m beginning to sense a slight shift in emphasis from one of the candidates for the Texas House of Representatives District 87 Republican primary. It came the other night from Walter “Four” Price of Amarillo, one of two GOP hopefuls seeking the nomination; the other candidate is Victor Leal, also of Amarillo.

Price talked a bit more openly Sunday night in a TV interview about his long-standing relationship with District 87. Price said he grew up in the district, and has lived in it for most of his life. The contrast with his opponent, Leal, is unmistakable, who only recently moved into District 87 from neighboring District 86.

And this campaign is beginning to take on a more aggressive tone as well, even though the two Republicans have few philosophical differences between them.

I’m guessing the aggressiveness will center on the issue of who is more attuned to the district. The media are reporting now on questions that have surfaced about Leal’s residency and whether he’s actually living in District 87. And this thread is bound to make partisans on both sides a bit uncomfortable, given how unfamiliar many folks here are with contested races among non-incumbent state legislative candidates.

David Swinford has held the seat since 1991 and has won re-election handily ever since. His pals John Smithee and Warren Chisum hardly ever draw opponents. So, with Swinford’s impending retirement from the House, District 87 voters are facing a serious debate between two serious and well-financed GOP candidates. What’s more, the winner of this battle is going to face Democrat Abel Bosquez and Libertarian James Hudspeth this fall.

So, this campaign is just getting warmed up.

Isn’t it fun?

Thursday night’s legislative candidate forum at KACV-TV produced at least a couple of interesting answers from the four men seeking to represent Texas House District 87.

One of them came from Democratic candidate Abel Bosquez of Amarillo, who is running unopposed in his party primary. Do you favor term limits? came the question to all four men. Three of them said “yes,” but no one would commit to limiting their own terms if they are elected to the office. Fair enough. Bosquez, though, said he opposes term limits for members of the Legislature. Voters have a right to vote for the candidate of their choice, even if that candidate is running for his or her umpteenth term, he indicated.

The other answer came from James Hudspeth, the Libertarian candidate from Dumas, whose name won’t be on the ballot until November. What about health care reform, Mr. Hudspeth? The government, he said, “has no role” in health care. At no level — federal, state or local — should government be involved in health care, he said. Hmmm. I looked up the Constitution of the United States of America and found the following in its preamble: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity …” (bold face emphasis added by yours truly).

Did the Founders say “promote the general Welfare”? I interpret that phrase to mean that health care falls under the umbrella of “general Welfare,” thus the federal government — and likely state and local governments — have an obligation to ensure that Americans have access to health care.

As a participant in the media panel that quizzed these guys, I left one question unasked, so I’ll pose it here: All four of them — and that included Republicans Four Price and Victor Leal, both of Amarillo — stipulated that they oppose raising taxes. But the state is facing a budget deficit estimated at $17 billion for the next biennium. If you aren’t going to seek a tax increase to balance the budget — which is required in Texas — what specifically are you prepared to cut? Which Panhandle programs and/or institutions are you willing to sacrifice in the interest of balancing the state budget?

The Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent, proclaims that he is proud to be an American. Me, too.

But this week, at a political rally near Houston — which featured ex-Gov. Sarah Palin’s rousing pep talk endorsing Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s bid for re-election — ol’ Nuge committed a bit of a patriotic faux pas.

He started playing the National Anthem on his guitar — a la Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969 — prompting the crowd to stand. Oh, but the old boy forgot to take off his cowboy hat.

Protocol says men should doff their caps when the anthem is played.

But, hey, the star-spangled licks sounded pretty good. They would have made Jimi proud.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/

Sarah Palin is the gift that just keeps on giving.

The former half-term Alaska governor went to the Tea Party Convention in Nashville and blasted President Obama for, among other things, his generous use of a TelePrompter.

Then, during a Q&A, she sneaked a peek at her hand while responding to a question about her vision for America. It seems she didn’t need a TelePrompter; no, she needed crib notes scribbled on her hand to remind her of the talking points all of us out here in Flyover Country thought she had memorized by now.

That’s what we get for thinking, yes?

Why all the hoo-ha over this? Well, no one would have said a thing had she shown up with note cards to which she could refer. Instead, she tried a little sleight of hand to hide the crib notes. What would President Reagan — one of Palin’s alleged heroes — have thought of that? The late president was well-known for his use of note cards. But he surely knew how to communicate verbally in public when he spoke about the principles upon which he stood.

Thanks again, Gov. Palin, for the good laugh. Many of us need it right about now.

I’m listening to non-stop (seemingly) coverage of the East Coast snowstorm. Then it hit me: The snow that blanketed Washington, New York and all the points between those points has hit the newscasters where they live, literally.

Thus, their local story becomes a national story. I get that.

It’s interesting how relatively little coverage those folks gave the snowstorm that pounded the middle of the country — from New Mexico, to the Panhandle and into Oklahoma. Sure, they reported it with a two-minute segment before moving on to other stories.

But the East Coast storm is a “big deal,” as one Denver-born talking head on MSNBC said this morning.

Thirty inches of snow surely is a major event, no matter where it falls. But I’m struck by the attention the broadcasters are giving this story. It affects them right there, given that the broadcast and cable networks are HQ’d in Washington and New York.

We feel your pain.

Someone once offered a quip about weather forecasters. It goes something like this: How is it that meteorologists can be so wrong so often, but still keep their jobs?

I laughed when I heard it — and I’ve been repeating it ever since.

But I have to hand the weathermen and women this one: They’ve gotten our winter weather just about right.

I had heard some months ago that the National Weather Service had predicted a wetter-than-normal winter for the Texas Panhandle. The Farmer’s Almanac had said much the same thing. National Public Radio was reporting it, too.

Last night’s snowfall is expected to be followed by more snow over the weekend.

El Nino is back in action off the Pacific Coast, and it’s driving storm systems this way — after pounding the dickens out of California, Oregon and Washington.

So, the past few days have caused considerable discomfort for us city slickers, while bringing smiles to the farmers — especially the dryland folks — who always welcome moisture. And they’ve gotten a lot of it in the past week. I haven’t heard anyone complain yet about getting “too much rain.” Those who live in a region — such as the Panhandle — that averages about 20 inches of rain annually never should gripe when precipitation keeps falling.

But the weather folks had told us this would transpire. My wife and I usually just smirk when we hear such things, believing that if you say something enough times that sooner or later, it comes true.

Well, this time they got it right.

Those of us who get pounded by those who disagree with us or who believe we are wrong about anything appreciate getting a good word it’s deserved.

Nice going.

Are you kidding me?

Turf Monsters or Venom? One of these two names will be hung on the Amarillo professional indoor football team before too long.

Surely we could have done better than that.

The Dusters name has been cast aside because of some contractual stipulation that prevents the team from keeping it. So, the organization asked fans to come up with a new moniker.

The team has settled on two “finalists.”

I’ll concede that perhaps one can get used to whatever name emerges as the winner — although I’m having trouble imagining how I’m going to ever like either name.

How do you characterize “Venom”? And just what does a “Turf Monster” look like?

Sheesh! I think we need to start over on this one.

I have lived in three cities in my life: my hometown of Portland, Ore., Beaumont, Texas and now, Amarillo.

Of the three, Amarillo is by far the best-prepared-for-snow-and-ice community of them all. The comparison to Beaumont probably is ludicrous, given that the Golden Triangle city hardly ever gets snow. When it does snow there — which it did once during our time there — the city becomes paralyzed. Portland does get snow most winters. Sometimes it’s severe, as it was during the winter of 1968-69, when I was home for Christmas leave from the Army and spent virtually the entire time cooped up at home with my parents. Man, what a blast that was. But when a major snowfall blankets Portland, that city seems woefully ill-prepared to cope.

Amarillo is different.

This morning, I pulled out of my house expecting to be slipping and sliding all the way downtown — about a six-mile drive. It didn’t happen.

Every major thoroughfare I traveled — Coulter, 45th, Western and Plains — had been cleared of snow by the plows. I looked up on Interstate 40 and saw traffic moving nicely along the highway. Sand trucks had passed through several intersections. A good friend told me he heard the plow trucks moving past his Paramount Boulevard home in the wee hours.

So, I take my hat off to the city for keeping at least my own path to work clear this morning.

It’s good to be so well-prepared.

Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards is a serial liar — who came within just a few thousand votes of becoming vice president of the United States.

He cheated on his cancer-stricken wife with a woman who worked as a videographer for his campaign. He lied about the affair to his wife and to the inquiring media, only to admit that he did have such an affair. Then he denied being the father of the woman’s baby daughter, only to admit that, yep, he’s the daddy. He reportedly pleaded with a former staffer and friend to cover it up, professing his love for his ailing wife and saying he wanted to protect her from all this bad publicity.

And all the while, Edwards was presenting himself to his adoring supporters as a dedicated family man, devoted to his wife and children and a champion of the concerns of ordinary Americans.

That might be the most important lie of all.

The word this week is that Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, have separated. Imagine that.

But now get this: The 2004 presidential election, in which Edwards ran on the Democratic ticket as the vice presidential nominee, came within a whisker of electing Sen. John Kerry as president — and Edwards as the VP.

The election came down to who would win Ohio’s 20 electoral votes. President Bush ended up winning that state by 158,000 votes out of more than 5.6 million votes cast. That means a swing of 79,000 votes to Kerry and Edwards and Ohio’s electoral votes go into the Democrats’ column. Thus, Kerry and Edwards win with 271 electoral votes to 267 for Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — which would have been nearly identical to Bush’s razor-thin winning Electoral College margin in the 2000 election.

Edwards’ fellow Democrat, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, had it right this week. Edwards is “disgusting.”

The story published the other day about residents complaining about the manure smell in southeast Amarillo reminded me of when I first arrived in Texas way back in 1984.