As we're getting further and further along in the campaign, I'm discovering a definite upside, from my perspective as a writer. While my volume of mail has increased, much of it has been either the endless solicitations from campaign advertising companies (useful information if I had a war chest, really) or questionnaires from various political groups (some of these are interesting...I may share some later as a blog topic). But I was VERY excited about a booklet I received in the mail today.

The booklet is put out by the "Texas Health Institute", and is titled: "The Health of Texans: a Glance at Some Critical Health Policy Issues". This is EXACTLY the kind of material that i can find to be useful for putting together articles, and I intend to use it to its fullest. While I haven't been able to do much more than glance at it at present, I am chomping at the bit to take this sucker apart. I might be able to get a few articles out of this one.

Now, I think it's fair to say that the "Texas Health Institute" is not going to like a lot of the conclusions I draw from their material. But I will definitely take a stand, something that a lot of politicians are not likely to do. They'll have no problem pinning me down on this one, and the BEST result I could hope for is a series of "swift boat" ads by my opponent claiming that I hate the poor. I don't have the money to afford a lot of advertising, and negative advertising by my opponent is likely to increase my profile.

Anyway, I'll have to let you know what I get out of this particular gem. It should be interesting.