Moore not running for re-election?

Hotline reports:

Sources close to Rep. Dennis Moore (KS-03) say he will not run for re-election in '10.

I'll be digging into this and report more. If true, it becomes a question of who will replace him, and of what he'll do next. Hotline has him running for Senate, though odds seem to favor Kathleen Sebelius for the Senate seat Sam Brownback will be abandoning. I'm not convinced that a cabinet post would prevent her from running in 2010.

I'd rather see him run for Governor. Lieutenant Governor Mark Parkinson seems nice enough, but he hasn't been a Democrat for that long, and while Dennis Moore is hardly one of the more liberal members of Congress, his status in the party is unquestionable. If Kansans want a moderate Republican, it seems like there will be plenty of them running; let the Democratic nominee to succeed Governor Sebelius be a well-established member of the party.

Then again, Moore isn't a young man any more, and may be looking for something less intense. His charm derives largely from the fact that he doesn't have the feel of a politician who seeks power for power's sake, and there are surely charitable groups or local businesses that could put his experience to good use.

I'll be talking to some folks and trying to sort out how this will reshape Kansas politics. Brownback is known to be eyeing a gubernatorial bid, Jerry Moran is leaving his seat in the big Kansas 1st, all of which puts Kansas politics into quite a tizzy. Kansas Jackass is a great new source to keep track of all this uproar.