"I wonder if Connie Morella would give the Senate a shot."
Connie Morella is (i) WAY, WAY, WAY too liberal to win a statewide GOP primary, (ii) WAY, WAY too socially liberal for general election voters outside of Montco, PG County and a few precincts in Baltimore City, Baltco and Howard County, and (iii) old enough to fart dust. Basically, Connie is just as socially liberal as Kweisi Mfume and more so than Ben Cardin, and I doubt that she could win a Senate election; plus, given her expected voting record, I think I'd rather have Cardin.
The MD GOP recently tried running a former Congresswoman who was pushing 80, and Helen Bentley (who, unlike Morella, is a solid blue-collar conservative in the Bob Ehrlich mode---in fact, she is more conservative than Ehrlich) was unable to beat Dutch Ruppersberger in a district whose partisan balance is similar to that of the state as a whole. I think the secret to the GOP winning is not to try to convince affluent Montco RINOs to vote Republican (since President Bush got 33% in 2004, the last Republican to carry Montco in a statewide race was Reagan in 1984 by less than 1,000 votes and the only GOP presidential candidate since Ike to get over 50% in Montco was Nixon in 1972), but to get higher margins in blue-collar areas. That's what Ehrlich did when he got blown out in Montco and PG County and still got 51.55% for the upset victory.
I don't know a whole lot about MD politics but I know I was VERY surprised when Ehrlich won. I don't think Steele has a snowball's chance in hell personally, simply because the state is so liberal.
I think it would be great to get him to run, because I think at least he would ruffle the D's feathers and it would be great for the GOP to get someone as eloquent and intelligent as Steele out on the national stage. He might also get close enough to siphon money away from the DNC that they will hopefully dearly need for
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