Republican State Auditor Tom Salmon, who was elected to his third term last November, is considering a run against U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, next year.
Last month, Salmon announced he would not seek a fourth term as auditor. Earlier this month, he said he's forming an exploratory committee.
Although Salmon has not formally made up his mind, by all appearances, he wants to take on Sanders.
Sanders - who served eight terms in the U.S. House before trouncing businessman Rich Tarrant to win his first Senate term in 2006 by a 33 percent margin - would be a formidable opponent for Salmon, to a candidate as skilled a politician as a Jim Douglas, a Patrick Leahy or a Peter Shumlin.
Unfortunately for Salmon, he is not a skilled politician.
Salmon's decision to leave the Democratic Party in 2009 left many Vermonters scratching their heads. His arrest for driving under the influence later that year didn't help his political career either.
The Office of the Vermont State Auditor appears to be doing its job, but it's difficult to say whether it is because of, or in spite of, Salmon.
And there are Salmon's public statements of late, such as the one that he made to Politico.com's David Cantanese in January:
“I am not attached to the 2012 outcome, my odds, or my political career. I don't need to be senator, or governor, or stay put as state auditor - I need to be an authentic self-utilizing power along the lines of excellence. I am deeply concerned that we address risks of economic, political and spiritual significance through a new brand of leaders that communicate effectively from the sincere center.”
In the words of Slate.com's David Weigel, Salmon's words “sounds like a No Labels manifesto translated into Laotian and back into English.” Weigel also called Salmon's bid to challenge Sanders “the most doomed campaign of 2012.”
It's easy to write off Salmon as a hopeless case in an campaign against a popular and well-financed opponent. Sanders is behaving as most well-entrenched politicians do, saying that it's too early to talk about the 2012 campaign and that he is focused on his current work in the Senate.
Nonetheless, Sanders has been raising money and preparing for a difficult campaign, regardless of who his opponent might be. He has long been a target of the right, and they would dearly love seeing Sanders turned out of office.
In the post-Citizens United election landscape, it is a dead certainty that we will see millions of dollars spent on attack ads against Sanders. If you thought Tarrant's $7.3 million campaign against Sanders in 2006 was the dirtiest campaign in recent Vermont history, just wait until next year.
However, Salmon is not even a certainty to win his party's nomination.
Barre Mayor Tom Lauzon, a Republican, said recently that he is considering running against Salmon.
And don't forget former Gov. Jim Douglas. He ran against Leahy for his Senate seat in 1992 and lost. Douglas briefly considered running against then-Sen. Jim Jeffords in 2005, until Jeffords announced his retirement and Douglas then decided to run for another term as governor.
Many political observers around the state have said that Douglas is the only Republican whocan beat Sanders. Given Douglas' political history, it's not unrealistic to think that his apparent retirement from politics will end as soon as it becomes clear that he has the money and the backing to win his party's nomination.
Yes, we are a long way from November 2012. A lot of things can happen. But it's safe to predict that Bernie Sanders will not get a free ride to re-election. Whomever challenges him will have plenty of money and muscle behind him from the Republican National Committee and all the various conservative political action groups that have sprouted up in the last couple of years.
This doesn't mean that Sanders will lose. He will have plenty of money and muscle behind him from liberal advocacy groups in Vermont, and across the country. The senator will likely have a tougher road to a second term than in any of his previous statewide campaigns. He is smart enough to know that victory is not a given.