Keenan run would be healthy

If former Montana state Senate president Bob Keenan throws his hat in the ring, vying to be the candidate to challenge Sen. Baucus next year, it would be healthy for the state GOP.

Political memories are short, though, so Keenan would do well to get on in and start raising money, making phone calls, and travelling around the state. A lot has happened since Keenan's primary challenge to Sen. Conrad Burns, and even more has happened since Keenan was Senate president.

He needs to remind Montanans of his leadership qualities and ability to mount a tough campaign -- and for many who weren't paying attention back then, he will need to introduce himself.

Mike Lange was right when he responded with an upbeat note for the party:

It's encouraging from a party standpoint that folks might finally wake up to the fact that we can beat Max Baucus, despite a $6 million lead in money.

Sen. Baucus is far more vulnerable than he has been in years. We need to find out who is up to the challenge of opposing him. Lange isn't going to roll over and play dead, and neither, we suspect, will Keenan, once he is in.

Now, who else?

Quotation of the (long Senate) night

From the man who is perhaps the favorite Senator around Montana Headlines:

Added Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., of his Democratic colleagues: "I bet I can stay up longer than they can."

And so he did, speaking on the floor after even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had retired, a little after midnight, to a cot set up in a parlor adjacent to his office.

Coburn, of course, in the course of a career as a physician delivering babies, has pulled more all-nighters than the rest of his Senate colleagues combined -- and he actually has had to do something real, unlike the bad theatrics of last night, when Sen. Reid courageously filibustered his own bill.