Governors, just like presidents, take more credit and get more blame than they deserve.

That’s especially true in Texas, which has a weak governor’s office. Yet the Republican gubernatorial debate showed Texans how Gov. Rick Perry sought to gather up all the credit for creating jobs and how his challengers, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina, sought to blame him for all that has gone wrong.

The next debate — which should include Medina, who many Republicans see as a spoiler — needs to hone in on the realities of the office all three people are seeking. How does the next governor plan to act within his or her power to make things right? What specifically can the governor do — without legislative authority — to put people back to work?

My sense is that there isn’t anything the governor can do. So why does Perry keep touting his “record” as a job creator and a tax reducer? For that matter, why do his challengers keep pounding him for things over which he has next to zero authority or control?

Remember when Gov. Perry issued an executive order requiring middle school-age girls to receive a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer? The Legislature quite promptly overrode the governor’s order. So much for executive authority, correct?

Texas’ founders had this idea that the governor shouldn’t have too much power. The governor is empowered, however, to make appointments to boards and commissions. The first governor’s debate didn’t touch on any of that. Perhaps the second one will zero in on the type of people the governor will appoint to Texas regulatory agencies.

If so, then we actually might get some relevant discussion going.

Pantex was locked down this morning when some goose hunters showed up near what’s known as The Bomb Factory.

The world is witnessing the good and the bad of American political life in the wake of the Haiti earthquake tragedy.

The good? It is the bonding among politicians coming together to aid in the relief effort. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — one Democrat, one Republican — are taking the lead in a massive effort to spark international relief efforts. That’s what compassionate Americans do. They set aside their differences for the common good.

The bad? The idiotic comments of talk-radio gasbag Rush Limbaugh, who on Wednesday was making light of President Obama’s response to the earthquake and the catastrophic loss of life on the island nation. The tragedy, Daddy Dittohead said, is “tailor-made” for the president, suggesting that Obama’s response is designed solely to achieve political gain. So help me, this clown is incapable of demonstrating an ounce of on-air decency.

Talk about damning someone with faint praise …

Well, two of the least-surprising events of the new year hit the headlines Monday.

One is that Mark McGwire used steroids for a decade, including the year he and Sammy Sosa electrified the baseball world with their incredible home run contest. That was in 1998. McGwire finished the year with 70 HRs, while Sosa ended up second with 66. Both men broke the major league record of 61 set in 1961 by Roger Maris, who outdueled Mickey Mantle in another epic home run duel.

Almost everyone on the planet knew that McGwire used ‘roids, just as almost everyone knows Sosa used them, too. Sosa hasn’t yet come clean. McGwire’s admission Monday was heartfelt, teary — and is an attempt at redemption for the retired slugger, who wants desperately to get into the Hall of Fame.

Good luck on that one, Big Mac.

The other non-shocker?

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and darling of the right wing, is becoming a commentator for the Fox News Channel.

It was just a matter of time that Sarah Barracuda would end up on the “Fair and Balanced” Network, where she’ll blend in with the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee and Bill O’Reilly.

I’ll be interested to see if she’ll allow herself to be challenged by anyone who disagrees with her world view (such as it is) or whether she’ll just join the conservative echo chamber that Fox News has become.

But hey, in the interest of “fair and balanced” commentary, let it be said that MSNBC’s roster of lefty commentators — namely Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow — is just as guilty of mingling on-air only with those with whom they agree.

If the former half-term governor is willing to grow, then she needs to enter the rough and tumble world of honest political debate. It would be fun to see how she holds up when pushed, prodded and challenged. I don’t expect that to happen on Fox.

I’ve been struck by the rationale of those who think that Texas Tech did former head football coach Mike Leach wrong when it fired him.

All the brave talk I have been hearing from local Democrats about how they’re going to come storming back is just that: talk.

Looking at the ballot for this spring’s primary season presents a pretty gloomy outlook for Panhandle Democrats. In races involving Potter or Randall counties, I find a single name running for a contested seat: Abel Bosquez, Democratic candidate for House District 87, a seat that has been held since The Flood by a Republican. Bosquez is a political animal, namely as a one-time chairman of the Potter County Democratic Party. He is married to a Democratic justice of the peace, Nancy Bosquez.

I have to admit to being surprised that one longtime local Democratic officeholder, Potter County Commissioner Manny Perez, escaped getting a challenge this year. Perez seems to draw an opponent every election year, but not this time. Why is that a surprise? Perez didn’t acquit himself well with many Potter County leaders over his stubborn resistance to a tax increment reinvestment zone for downtown Amarillo. I thought the big-money interests in Potter County would have found someone to challenge the combative Perez in 2010.

But that’s what I get for thinking, I guess.

But given a chance to contest other races, the Democratic Party is a no-show in 2010 — at least in this part of the Lone Star State.

It’s a shame, given that a two-party system works better than a one-party system. A strong opposition party often keeps the party in power more accountable and less arrogant. It’s true no matter which party is in the driver’s seat.

And besides, the Democrats have a first-rate candidate near the top of the ballot; he is Bill White, the recently former mayor of Houston who switched his goal from the U.S. Senate seat he (and everyone else) thought would be vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison, to a run for governor. Make no mistake, he will mount a formidable effort against whomever the Republicans nominate in March.

That excitement obviously didn’t filter on down to the local level, at least not here, where the Republicans continue their vise-grip on the political infrastructure.

I spent a good bit of Saturday in Lubbock. I attended a meeting with the next Group Study Exchange team that will represent our Rotary district on a professional exchange in Thailand. The meeting ended around noon.

Then we had lunch and after that, we went to the Triple J, an eatery/watering hole at the corner of 19th Street and Buddy Holly Drive. Then the thought occurred to me: Where does someone like, oh, Mike Leach, hang out? The former Texas Tech head football coach has been in the news lately, as we all know. He’s a recognizable guy. He lives and works in a city that’s roughly the size of Amarillo (OK, OK, it’s a little bigger). Where does he go to escape the madness? Heck, even in his glory days — back when he had an actual job, such as coaching football players — he couldn’t show himself in public without being mobbed.

Now that he’s a mega celebrity as a result of some highly negative publicity, he must feel like a shut-in. Either that or he’s high-tailed it out of town to some posh resort full of other mega celebrities.

My wife made an insightful observation this morning at breakfast while listening to the quiet chatter among patrons and staff of the Pancake Station restaurant on Virginia Circle.

“I wonder,” she said, “if people in Alaska talk about the cold weather.”

Yep, it seems that the Arctic blast that blew in Wednesday evening has everyone in the Panhandle talking today about one thing: the weather.

Well, as a corollary to her thought, I offer this: If Alaskans do talk about the cold weather, how cold does it need to get before people discuss it? Yes, it’s mighty cold in Amarillo this morning, with wind chill factors around 10-below zero.

To those in, say, Point Barrow, that must seem like swimsuit weather this time of year.

I recently have become acquainted with a retired Amarillo firefighter who this morning sung the praises of a decision rendered Tuesday by the Amarillo City Commission.

He caught me a little by surprise.

The city did well in selecting a private company to take over ambulance service, said the former firefighter, citing the protections it has built in to the agreement with the company to protect Amarillo residents. Why the surprise? The firefighters union had lobbied hard to get the ambulance job. It believed it could be more faithful to the residents than some out-of-town outfit that is in it for the money. Northwest Texas Healthcare Systems, which used to provide ambulance service to the city, has quit, saying it lost $1.6 million just in the past year alone.

But then came the mountain of stipulations that the city laid on Colorado-based American Medical Response. Among them are the posting of a $1.5 million bond, which it would forfeit if it broke the terms of the agreement; requiring a six-month advance warning if the company decides to bail out of Amarillo; and the ability of the city to take possession of all the equipment that the company would leave behind — such as ambulances — if it broke the rules.

That is good enough, apparently, to suit the firefighters. My fire service acquaintance tipped his proverbial hat to the city for doing its due diligence in crafting an agreement that provides ambulance service to the city’s nearly 200,000 residents.

I, too, tip my hat, and not just to the city — but also to the firefighters for being so magnanimous in defeat.