2010 - More Women for U.S. Senate?

With 35 Senate seats being contested this year (33 plus 2 special elections), Democrats have only 4 female candidates: Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Kay Hagan (NC), Vivian Figures (AL) and incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA). That's a shamefully low number. The Republicans only have 2 incumbents, Elizabeth Dole (NC) and Susan Collins (ME), and one sole challenger, Christine O'Donnell (DE).

Overall, this is not a great year for women in the U.S. Senate. The overall outcome will be somewhere between minus 2 and plus 4 female Senators. The most likely outcome is somewhere between minus 1 and plus 1.

So, let's look ahead to 2010. Specifically, to which Democratic female politicians might or should run for the U.S. Senate in 2010.

The following seats are up in 2010. Current incumbents in parentheses, female incumbents in bold (Democrats) and italic (Republicans):

Alabama (Richard Shelby - R)
Alaska (Lisa Murkowski - R)
Arizona (John McCain - R)
Arkansas (Blanche Lincoln - D)
California (Barbara Boxer - D)
Colorado (Ken Salazar - D)
Connecticut (Chris Dodd - D)
Florida (Mel Martinez - R)
Georgia (Johnny Isaakson - R)
Hawaii (Daniel Inouye - D)
Idaho (Mike Crapo - R)
Illinois (Barack Obama - D)
Indiana (Evan Bayh - D)
Iowa (Chuck Grassley - R)
Kansas (Sam Brownback - R)
Kentucky (Jim Bunning - R)
Louisiana (David Vitter - R)
Maryland (Barbara Mikulski - D)
Missouri (Kit Bond - R)
Nevada (Harry Reid - D)
New Hampshire (Judd Gregg - R)
New York (Chuck Schumer - D)
North Carolina (Richard Burr - R)
North Dakota (Byron Dorgan - D)
Ohio (George Voinovich - R)
Oklaboma (Tom Coburn - R)
Oregon (Ron Wyden - D)
Pennsylvania (Arlen Specter - R)
South Carolina (Jim DeMint - R)
South Dakota (John Thune - R)
Utah (Robert Bennett - R)
Vermont (Patrick Leahy - D)
Washington (Patty Murray - D)
Wisconsin (Russ Feingold - D)

Now, I'm not necessarilly looking for primary challengers here but if you think one of the incumbent Democrats should be primaried by a woman let us know. No, what I'm really looking for is Democratic women who could challenge the incumbent Republicans and for Democratic women to run in open seats should some of these incumbents retire (both D and R).

So, which women do you want to see run for the U.S. Senate in 2010?