While most media coverage of the upcoming Texas primaries has focused on the bloody Republican primary battle between Gov. Perry and Senator Hutchison, the DMN has also focused on what’s going on with the Democratic side, as the filing deadline has just passed:

It’s the new year – smokers want to quit; others want to lose weight. The Democrats are resolved simply to quit losing.

The party that has wandered in the political desert for 16 years without a statewide victory filled their primary roster with the optimism of a clean slate – well, as clean as any slate can be that includes humorist Kinky Friedman.

Leading the lineup is the great hope White – former Houston Mayor Bill White, a man with a constituency, money-raising clout and executive experience. He will have to beat six others, including Houston hair products tycoon Farouk Shami, to take on the Republican nominee.

New on the hopefuls list is Linda Chavez-Thompson, a player in Democratic politics with a story that begins as a sharecropper’s daughter, a high school education and the determination that took her to the national executive offices of the AFL-CIO.

She will challenge former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle and Austin restaurateur Marc Katz for the lieutenant governor nomination.

In all, 16 have signed up in six races hoping to become the first Democrat to win a statewide office since Bob Bullock was re-elected lieutenant governor in 1994.

We have a better slate that in recent years, though we apparently couldn’t find someone to run for State Comptroller. However, I have to agree with the UT professor quoted in the article that this isn’t likely to be Democratic year. The Republican base is excited to get out and vote and the Democratic base right now is not. But good candidates certainly help.

TWM will offer our endorsements in a few weeks as the March primaries get closer, but here’s some news on a race I know Irving citizen Nat-Wu is interested in:

In Dallas County, Democratic state Reps. Carol Kent and Robert Miklos and Republican state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown drew no opposition from within their own parties as the filing deadline passed Monday, but each drew multiple opponents from across the aisle.

Democrats Loretta Haldenwang, a small-business consultant, and Kim Limberg, a former Texas Department of Transportation manager, will fight over who gets to challenge Harper-Brown in November for the District 105 seat, which includes most of Irving. The race is being watched statewide because Harper-Brown won by just 19 votes in November 2008. Republicans say Harper-Brown will win by a wider margin this year.

“Going in, Linda has a tremendous advantage in that she is very well thought of by her constituents in the district,” Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Neerman said. “She has been taking this race very seriously.”

Democrats hope to take the seat from Harper-Brown and further solidify their hold on Dallas County – and perhaps take back the majority in the Texas House.

“We’re much more organized and much more focused,” said Dallas County Democratic Party Chairwoman Darlene Ewing. “I think she’s in trouble.”