The only candidate gaining steam is ... Chris Bell

Funny how the guys on the local trash radio hate Rick Perry so much that they now think Kinky and his dirty mouth could be the surprise candidate to take it all and Chris Bell to finish in a miserable fourth place. Somebody tell Dan Patrick the good Shepard is a racist.

An oh yeah...HELLO! and HELLO!

The more Texans see of the three major candidates for governor, the more some like the fourth.

Three weeks into the TV campaign by Gov. Rick Perry and independent challengers Kinky Friedman and Carole Strayhorn, the only candidate gaining steam is ...Chris Bell?

One month from the start of voting, the Democratic Party nominee is still -- to borrow his own term for his Texas education plan -- a "moon shot" away from landing in the Governor's Mansion in January.

But for the moment, the gangly former yell leader for the Highland Park Scots seems to be edging ahead of the two cartoonish independent candidates, maybe because Texas has seen them plenty already.

One Republican close to the campaign already thinks this is a Perry-Bell race.

That Republican would be Perry.