Rep. Kenny Hulshof, a rising Republican star in Congress, is on the short list to be University of Missouri president. That raises the possibility of Democrats picking up his House seat representing Missouri's Little Dixie.

Hulshof won the once solidly Democratic seat in 1996 with 48 percent of the vote and was given a coveted membership on the House Ways and Means Committee. Hulshof has won recent elections with over 61 percent (even in 2006, when Democrats were winning elsewhere in Missouri and a state Senate seat in the district was lost by the Republicans).

Missouri Republican strategists worry that it would be difficult to retain the district in a special election if Hulshof takes the university post.

PATRICK KENNEDY'S TESTIMONY

One year after Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island checked himself into rehabilitation after crashing his car into a vehicle barrier on Capitol Hill because he was visibly impaired, he testified about drug rehabilitation at a little-noticed hearing Tuesday of the Senate Health Committee.

Kennedy in 2006 said a sleep aid had caused him to get up and drive in his sleep, but before the crash that night he was seen at the Hawk and Dove bar on Capitol Hill. Republicans on the Senate committee did not ask him about his use of rehab to avoid consequences of his accident.

A footnote: The congressman's father, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, is chairman of the committee but was in Northern Ireland Tuesday on official business.

To find out more about Robert D. Novak and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.