Gilbert: “I’m not running for cookie commissioner. I’m running for ag commissioner.”

It’s not a big cash crop. But Texas sells $60 million worth of sugar cane a year, all grown in the Rio Grande Valley.

Based on the historic role of a state commissioner of agriculture, you’d expect the officeholder to sing cantatas about the commodity.

You would, except if she’s Susan Combs. This ag commissioner has nailed the picture to the wall. Sugar: public enemy No. 1.

Historically, the focus of an agriculture commissioner has been on selling crops, dusting crops, processing crops, shipping crops.

Combs has done that. But she’s also spent a lot of time on lollipops.

As in: No lollipops in class as an incentive. No soft drinks in school vending machines.

In recent years, citing child obesity, Combs has taken aim at foods classified with initials that sound like a pretext for “shock and awe”: FMNVs.

That stands for “food of minimal nutritional value,” which Combs zealously has sought to remove from school campuses.

This has led to some bizarre and tortured judgment calls by the FMNV high command in Austin. If the treat is mostly sugar, forget it. But what about, say, banana muffins? That’s relatively nutritious, but certainly full of sugar.

This surreal micromanagement led to a zany moment in the Texas Legislature last year with passage of the so-called Cupcake Amendment. Pushed by Waco Democrat Jim Dunnam, it guarantees parents and grandparents the right to deliver baked goods to class for birthday parties or school-designated functions. “What about sprinkles?” a joker in the House asked upon passage.

This needed an act of the Texas Legislature?

Unfortunately, yes. And it brings up one of those nagging oddities about government under Republican hegemony.

Does anyone remember these people campaigning on the Jeffersonian-Reaganesque axiom, “The government governs best which governs least?”

I dare say they all did. They do today. But in practice we have meddling, one-size-fits all, top-down, corporate, distribute-this-memo government. And it particularly comes into play in oppressive controls on our schools.

Schools have to request permission to hiccup under these “less government” regimes. (If a school hiccups in Texas it must have met a “TAKS objective.”)

As for Combs, now she’s done with counting empty calories. She wants to count tax dollars as state comptroller. Her Democratic opponent, Fred Head, says she’s part of a Republican clique whose budgets can’t be trusted. Combs, a former state lawmaker, long has been a GOP bright light.

Gov. Rick Perry warred openly with current comptroller Carole Strayhorn. He has campaigned openly for Combs.

Head said Texas is served when it has someone independent like himself or the departing Strayhorn to take lawmakers to task when sleight of hand comes into play in the biennial quest to balance a budget with “no new taxes.”

In the race to succeed Combs at agriculture, there’s the normal talk about crops and all. But cupcakes keep coming up.

Republican Todd Staples, a state senator, supports Combs’ nutrition initiatives but says he’s willing to talk to parents or educators about concerns that the state has overreached.

His Democratic opponent, Hank Gilbert, is just disdainful. “I’m not running for cookie commissioner. I’m running for ag commissioner,” said the rancher from Whitehouse.

Staples defends what the state has done to market Texas products but promises to keep pushing the envelope. Gilbert assails the sense that Texas producers must meet the highest standards when shipping beef overseas but that substandard beef makes it ashore here because of trade agreements.

Whatever the case, we shall remain vigilant about lollipops.