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[Burr] expressed surprise that he was leading Bowles, who just came through a statewide campaign, losing to Republican Elizabeth Dole for U.S. Senate last year.

I can't imagine why. It's difficult to come up with a more worthless (and creepy) candidate than Erskine Bowles. Well, except Dan Blue comes to mind..

The GOP should be concerned about Bobby Etheridge - he'd be the toughest D nominee, by far....

The GOP should be concerned about Bobby Etheridge - he'd be the toughest D nominee, by far....

I agree. This is the first I'd seen in awhile that he was still considering a run. I thought that I'd seen something some time back that he had ruled it out.

"The GOP should be concerned about Bobby Etheridge - he'd be the toughest D nominee, by far...."

I'm not so sure about that. Bowles has statewide name ID, and money up the wahoo. He ran quite strongly in rural areas in 2002, much better than I thought he would (and much better than Al Gore did, I may add). I don't think Etheridge will run better than Bowles did in rural areas, even though he used to be a tobacco farmer. At this point, I would be pleased if Etheridge ran for the Senate, since (i) it will open up his House seat, which would give us an excellent chance for a pick-up (President Bush got 53% of the vote in his redrawn district), (ii) Etheridge would probably lose to Bowles in the primary, or allow Blue to slip through with 40% composed almost entirely of black votes, and (iii) regardless of who wins the RAT nomination, he would have a hard time getting all the RATs back together to support him after the contentious primary. So to Etheridge, I say bring it on!

Johnny, what's your take on the RAT race?