(Cross posted from Kansas Jackass)
A couple weeks ago Nate Silver, this year's premier political number crunch, said it looked like the Kansas Senate seat being vacated by Sam Brownback was the most likely to flip to the Democrats in 2010.
Today, Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post puts the seat at the 8th most likely to switch- not quite as good, but, still, pretty dang awesome.
There is a great big caveat on both of those rankings though: That's only if Gov. Kathleen Sebelius decides to run for the seat. If she doesn't, while there will certainly be a Democrat on the ballot, the seat will tip steeply back toward Republican retention.
But, if not Sebelius, who?
Let's dream, for a moment, about who might run should Sebelius not run for the Senate. Believe it or not, we've got a list. (In order from likely candidate to not-so-much)
Lee Jones: Jones has now run for the United States Senate in Democratic primaries in Kansas twice and lost twice- though he did make the general election ballot as a replacement candidate in 2004 when he was then summarily crushed by Senator Sam Brownback. Jones is a good man who would probably be a good Senator, he just refuses to raise money likes he needs to or to hire and pay a staff. If he runs again, which we bet he does even if Sebelius runs, look to him losing to literally anyone else in the primary or general.
Greg Orman: Orman was the first Florida Kansas Republican Independent Democrat who announced a bid for the Senate against Pat Roberts this cycle. That lasted, oh, a couple months, before Orman dropped out of the race citing the "compromises necessary to be elected." Yawn. He did raise a ton of money in his about two months in the race- nearly $500,000. He might be back in '10 should Sebelius stay out.
Steve Boyda: Yes, husband to soon-to-be former Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, Steve was rumored as a potential candidate for the 2008 race before Orman announced. Also, he expressed interest in being appointed to fill former Attorney General Paul Morrison's unexpired term. Mr. Boyda obviously has some political smarts- he campaign manager to his wife's successful run for Congress in 2006, so he knows, in theory, how to run a race. With the very, very high likelihood (in this blogger's mind) that Congresswoman Boyda will be back for a rematch against Congresswoman-elect Lynn Jenkins in 2010, Mr. Boyda will probably find the timing bad again.
Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson: Maybe. But he's a much more likely candidate for Governor.
Now for some much, much less likely candidates, but still people who could have a shot and wouldn't be total embarrassments.
Congresswoman Nancy Boyda could, of course, be a possibility, but we'd be shocked to see her not run for her old seat and run for the Senate instead.
Jill Docking, who ran against Brownback in 1996 and nearly beat him, might jump in, but we'd like to see her run in the KS-04 instead. We don't really see either one as likely.
We know Congressman Dennis Moore has already said he isn't running, instead preferring to run for re-election, but we think he's be a decent candidate if she changed his mind. Jim Slattery also isn't running again, the poor man- he deserved better than he got, but he never had enough money to dig out from under Senator Pat Roberts nasty TV ads.
See, there are lots and lots of potential candidates...most without much of a hope of actually beating an incumbent United States Congressman for a seat in the United States Senate, but they could all run with at least some shot in Hell of winning.
Of the three who we see as the most likely candidates (Jones, Orman and Steve Boyda), probably, and we hate saying this, Greg Orman would be the strongest candidate, if only because he's already proven he can raise a lot of money really quickly. With that said, can he be trusted to stick it out and actually run?
It all comes down to this, Kansas Democrats: Kathleen Sebelius is the only potential candidate who can assure us the race will be competitive. We aren't saying any of these other folks couldn't run and win- any of them could- but it would take a lot more effort from each of them to compete with either Moran or Tiahrt.