We'll let the 2006 winner, Eric Bearse, go first.

Noriega is a flawed candidate whose attempt to be a centrist will be undercut by a liberal voting record, and whose attempt to be a middle class populist will be undercut by the reality that he is a utility executive who once lobbied for powerful utility interests. In other words, he has to become something he is not, which is never a winning formula for a candidate.

The fate of his candidacy will be sealed once Hillary Clinton gets the Democrat nomination. While she may play well in Travis County, she will drag down the whole ticket throughout Texas. Noriega also lacks the resources to get a message out. We saw what happens when a Democrat lacks money last cycle, when Chris Bell failed to live up to his self-proclaimed "cadaver standard": that you could roll out a Democrat cadaver for governor and still get 31 percent (Bell got 30.)

Noriega needs to find lightning in a bottle, hope Cornyn makes major mistakes (and voting to protect taxpayers from back-door Hillary-care is not a mistake) and hope the Republican nominee for president is a flawed candidate that makes Hillary electable in Texas. If all that happens he has a chance to get 45 percent and lose by only ten points.

Et tu, Jason?
What the Austin punditry knows about the future of Texas politics wouldn't qualify you at the bank for a loan for milk money.

Of course any Democratic nominee could beat John Cornyn. And given Rick Noriega's compelling life story, one cannot immediately discount his ability to put himself into a position to pull off what any sane observer would call an upset. The very few people who know anything know that Republicans have a built-in advantage of around 600,000 votes, but that's not counting how mopey Republicans are about everything from their presidential choices to CHIP to how the illegal immigrant who is mowing their lawn is ruining society. So you figure that if trends hold (Democrats excited about winning back the White House, Republicans pissed that Tom Landry's not running for President), then Noriega has about 300,000-400,000 votes to make up.

Forget for a second that Rick Noriega is right in all the places that John Cornyn is horribly wrong, e.g., CHIP, the war, education, and assassinating federal judges.
(Noriega's against that.) I mean, Rick Noriega is a Texan who defended his country by shooting terrorists. He's a Hispanic Jack Bauer. Hell, he's THE Hispanic Jack Bauer. The most heroic thing that John Cornyn has ever done was to screw over hundreds of thousands of uninsured Texas children. Oh, did I say "heroic"? I meant "hideous." My mistake.

The question is how to reach millions of Texans with the message that if Cornyn is re-elected, then the terrorists have won. The answer is millions of dollars. Gobs and gobs of it. You know Montgomery Burns' offhand remark that running for office would take "more than any honest man could afford"?

It's actually more money than that. Running an ad statewide costs $1.4 million a week. Add into that direct mail, phone banks, and radio commercials, and you start talking about real money. Even those flipping yard signs and bumper stickers will run a statewide campaign in the low six figures before it's all over.

How can Noriega build the horribly obscene pile of money that the television stations require to run appeals for democracy over the airwaves that they rent from the people? (Elise interjection: Whoa, that was harsh. )
Let me count the ways:

Noriega will have to ask for it, but Texas Democrats will have to give it. The Texas Democratic donor base will have to commit to Texas and stop sending their money out of state. Texas has more than enough Democratic money to fund a statewide race. But it needs to stay in Texas to do any good here.

Second, the national online donor community needs to build upon its impressive third quarter for Noriega. Almost a third of what the Noriega campaign raised came from the national netroots. Over the course of the rest of the campaign, they could become a significant factor if they make Rick Noreiga's campaign a top priority. A "macaca moment" that we saw in Virginia with the previously unbeatable Sen. George Allen would go a long way toward accomplishing this.

Third, there has to be some national money coming back into Texas. A friend of mine pointed out this week that a dollar goes a heck of a lot further in New Mexico or Oregon than in Texas. Republican incumbents are on the ropes all across the country in states that are much cheaper to play in that Texas.

Flip that around, though, and imagine this nightmare for the Republicans:

Nationally, Democrats are building a huge money advantage over Republicans.
If buying a week of television in Texas means that Republicans are NOT buying weeks of television in Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and New Mexico, then Democrats could bring Republicans to their knees by making Texas a battleground.

Luckily, as you may recall, Mikal Watts raised $1.1 million for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this year on the condition that it be spent in Texas. Other Texas Democratic donors should follow that example. The Alamo is still in Texas. Dare the Republicans to attack us here and make them surrender their seats in cheaper states or leave Cornyn undefended. They don't have enough money to do both. Democrats do. Turn the massive price tag of Texas TV into a paradoxical advantage for Texas Democrats, and then Texas might get a Senator who understands that we can't afford the price tag of blood and treasure that Cornyn is making us pay in Iraq.