UM... DID WE FORGET MARCY? In my funk about Sherrod Brown pulling out of U.S. Senate contention, it dawned on me that there's another possible Democratic statewide candidate who isn't being discussed at all -- Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Toledo.

Kaptur has represented the 9th District since she took down Reaganite Ed Weber in 1982. That campaign, fought largely on the issues of Social Security and natural gas decontrol (i.e. heating bills), was one of the first visible tears in Reagan's first-term invincibility cloak. Now in her twelfth term, Kaptur is Ohio's senior Congressional Democrat. She stomped her GOP opponent in the last election by a 68-32% margin. (You might remember the flap over this story that was supposed to be her undoing. She apologized, and went on to win going away.)

I called someone in Toledo who knows Kaptur very well to ask if there's some reason she's staying off the 2006 radar screen. He said no, not particularly; she's got a whole lot of seniority in the House, but has long had an interest in bigger arenas.

So why isn't Kaptur on anybody's hot list of potential top-of-the-ticket Democrats? I'm really curious.