The Future of Texas Politics

I'd like to take the opportunity of a web forum all to myself (Elizabeth's picking up her cousin at the airport, so I stole the computer and told Emily I was checking my email 145 times) to address a troubling rumor once and for all:

Patrick Rose and Mark Strama are not the same person.

I mean, that would be ridiculous, right? Though it is a widely accepted fact that Patrick Rose is a politician of such high caliber and campaigning know-how that he could feasibly have been elected to two different seats in the same year, I have difficulty believing that he would create a political alter ego, use that alter ego to establish a Campaign Academy, and not call that academy "Patrick Rose Campaign Boot Camp." Therefore, using my intern's intuition and the philosophical principle of Occam's Razor, I have come to what I believe is a simple and elegant conclusion:

Patrick Rose is Mark Strama's younger self, sent forward in time to serve Texas right when it needs him the most.

If you think about it, the signs are many: Patrick Rose is younger than Mark Strama. Mark is married and has a daughter; Patrick Rose has not yet been married, and does not have any children. Patrick Rose drives a DeLorean and has watched every single installment of I Love the 80s.

Look, I'm not saying that if you busted into Mark's capitol office and ripped up the floorboards, you would find the portal to the fourth dimension that was used to bring Patrick Rose into the 21st century.

But I'm also not saying that you wouldn't.