Kathleen Sebelius has tendered her resignation as Health and Human Services secretary, ending what can only be described as a rocky and embarrassing tenure in the Obama cabinet. Many of us, of course, just assumed she would retire from public life after resigning. But the New York Times is floating the idea that she might actually seek public office this fall. Democrats apparently want her to run for a U.S. Senate seat in her home state of Kansas, where she served as governor from 2003 until 2009. Her would-be opponent, incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), is beatable, they claim, and his overly critical (although perhaps justified) attacks on her managerial competence last October makes Democrats all the more hungry to unseat him:
In her darkest hour last fall, Kathleen Sebelius suffered one of the deepest cuts from an old family friend who accused her of “gross incompetence” over the rollout of the Affordable Care Act and demanded that she resign as secretary of health and human services. Now she is weighing revenge.
Ms. Sebelius is considering entreaties from Democrats who want her to run against that old friend, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas.
Several Democrats said this week that Ms. Sebelius had been mentioned with growing frequency as someone who could wage a serious challenge to Mr. Roberts, 77, who is running for a fourth term and is considered vulnerable. One person who spoke directly to Ms. Sebelius said that she was thinking about it, but added that it was too soon to say how seriously she was taking the idea.
Meh. I doubt she jumps in. She’s suffered one too many humiliations since October 1 to be a viable contender in 2014. She’d also have to declare her candidacy by June 2, which doesn’t give her a whole lot of time to make up her mind. And there are other reasons, too. The Times points out the president performed rather poorly in Kansas when he ran for re-election in 2012, garnering less than 40 percent of the vote; plus, a Democrat hasn’t represented Kansas in the upper chamber since 1939.
I’m fairly certain Democrats could find a less toxic candidate to challenge Roberts, albeit with less state name ID, than Sebelius.
Nominating her would be a mistake.
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