You make a good point about the Lt. Governor being the obvious successor to Governor, and that he could just stay in his Lt. Governor's seat and run for Senate or Governor later, and that he might want to do that instead of run for House. But wern't you suggesting he run for Senate this time?
Oh, and about SD, Pressler was going to run for House? As in former Senator Larry Pressler? Hmm, that's interesting. Most wouldn't want to take that step down. That said, it would be kinda nice if he runs for House in '06 to knock out Herseth, which I think he could do. Or heck, he could go for a rematch with Johnson in '08. But how old is he now?
"But wern't you suggesting he run for Senate this time? "
I was suggesting that he run for the Senate if he thinks he has a good shot, but if not to just stay as Lt. Gov. Basically, I was saying that only the chance of getting elected to the Senate could cause me not to run for almost certain reelection as Lt. Gov.
"Oh, and about SD, Pressler was going to run for House?"
In 2002, when John Thune left his House seat to run for the Senate against Tim Johnson, ex-Sen. Larry Pressler (who had been defeated by Johnson in the 1996 Senate race) ran for the House. Gov. Janklow was term-limited, and he had a long-running feud with Pressler, so he jumped into the House race as well, and he beat him in the primary by like 10%-15% IIRC (I think Janklow was in the high 40%s, Pressler in the 30%s, and one or to other candidates got the rest).
I don't think Larry Pressler has much of a future in electoral politics. I doubt he could come beat Herseth.
We need Gov. Rounds, who will win reelection in 2006, to run against Tim Johnson in 2008. I don'tknow who would be the best candidate against Herseth in 2006, but it probably won't be the Lt. Gov., who will seek reelection knowing he has a good chance of becoming governor within two years, and if not to be the gubernatorial frontrunner within 4 years. If Herseth wins reelection in 2006 and 2008, she will probably seek either the governorship or Thune's Senate seat in 2010, at which time the GOP would probably pick up the House seat, but I hope we don't have to wait that long before recovering seat that Janklow screwed up for us.