Apparently, some folks are bored with this election and are ready for the next one.
Rice University political scientist Mark Jones isn’t ready to stick a fork into Democrat Bill White’s campaign for governor, but he does suggest White start thinking about a run for U.S. Senate in 2012.
“With only three weeks remaining until Election Day, and less than one week before early voting begins, the door is slowly closing on the possibility of a Bill White victory over Gov. Rick Perry in this year’s gubernatorial contest.
[…]
“With victory increasingly unlikely, White’s thoughts now must begin to turn to his 2012 campaign for the U.S. Senate.
A strong showing against Perry Nov. 2 (more than 45 percent of the vote) in what is turning out to be a very difficult year for Democrats nationwide would make White an early favorite for the 2012 Senate race. Conversely, a poor performance (less than 40 percent of the vote) would raise serious doubts about White’s viability as a statewide candidate.”
I feel pretty confident that the latter will not be an issue. As for the rest of Prof. Jones’ point, you know that I’ve been an advocate for thinking about the 2012 Senate race on the grounds that I believe there’s a decent chance that KBH may get teabagged out of the Republican nomination. But with all due respect, let’s please conduct this election before we start speculating about what the candidates who are running in this election might do in the next one.