I've got no sense of Alexander's standing in TN--what is he, medium popular?

Alexander seems to have totally disappeared.  I too wonder how he is perceived there.

Well, I live in Lamar Alexander's home town of Maryville and I drive on Lamar Alexander Parkway every day. He's certainly quite popular around here, but he's largely out of the limelight even in East Tennessee. Most criticism of him comes from conservatives angry that he's finally broken from Bush on a few things this last year (after 4 years of voting lock-step with Bush).  I think the strongest case against him is that he's gone too Washington (aka out of touch), and he hasn't done enough to separate from Bush.

But it'll be tough. Tennessee generally prefers business-type politicians over ideologues, which is why the GOP here keeps nominating the relative moderate over the wingnut (think Corker v. Bryant, Lamar v. Hilleary, even Fred Thompson v. some wingnut dude in 1994 whom I forget the name). Fortunately, Mike McWherter is also a businessman in the Phil Bredesen mode and can inspire confidence. It'll be an interesting race as Lamar hasn't had a serious challenge in a long time.

Howard Dean said a long time ago, "We have to lose better," and this is one such case. If he's that well-regarded he'll be an asset for other Dems in TN as well.

I just hope we'll get as good a Senate candidate here in NC. The last two were bozos, and they were Erskine Bowles both times.

It's good to see McWherter in the race.  I view this one as lumped in with a large group of "potentially competitive" incumbent-leaning GOP races (in mostly deep red states) with New Mexico, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Idaho, possibly even Oklahoma (just because of how stupid Inhofe is...) or Kansas.  

Dems must use their money advantage to try to stretch the GOP thin financially and make a race out of some of these.  I don't know where (although I HOPE for KY more than the others...), but you could end up stealing a seat or two from this group if there is a real big wave and at the very least, if you force the GOP to firewall the reddest states in the country, that creates big problems elsewhere.

Just towards the bottom of the top 10, that's all.

The top 6 are clearly Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Minnesota, Maine, and Oregon, in no particular order.

After that, it's hard to tell what the next tier will ultimately be.  But name 4 states beyond those listed above where, right now, we're better situated than in Tennessee.

We've got a great opportunity in NC, but we don't have a candidate yet.  Hard to tell how Alaska will play out.  Domenici in NM is hurting more than usual, but if he runs, it'll still take a perfect storm to bring him down.  Nebraska looks possible but not likely without Kerrey, but I'm not keen on Kerrey as a Dem anyway.  I love Noriega in TX, but he's still a longshot.

And so on.

But it's still a hell of a lot better than last year, and we picked up 6 seats then.  I bet we can pick up at least 7 (and possibly as many as 10) this time, but it's hard to say which ones they'll be.

I agree that 6 seats are within reach and 10 are possible. And we must expand the top tier to 10 or 12 races, or even better to 13 or 14, to get the results we may need, the 60-vote majority.

Somehow with Senate seats, even in very good years or wave years, the winning party never seems to sweep them all. In '06 we were, at one point or another in the year, seriously contesting and hoping to win in 8 states. And we did win 6 : RI, PA, VA, OH, MO, MT -- but lost 2 on our wishlist : TN and AZ.

So, sure, 6 out of 8 ain't bad at all, that's 3 out of 4 for the mathmatically challenged. But if we only seriously contest 6 races this year and do win 3 out of 4 of them, well, winning 4 or 5 seats just ain't gonna be good enough.

If we are seriously competing in 12 states come Election Day '08, and we win 3 out of 4, then 9 new seats will be a damn good day. But not quite good enough for 60 seats, unless we win 4 out of 5 and get 10 seats.

To bring within our reach that 10-seat victory and the 60-seat majority, we need to challenge at least 12-Repub held seats, and hold Landrieu in LA.

Take your 6 already on the boards -- VA, NH, CO, MN, ME, OR -- then we must add 6 or 7 more from among TN, NC, AK, NM, NE, TX, KY, OK, KS, ID, or WY special.

At this point the regular seat in WY, and those too deep in Dixieland: SC, GA, AL, MS, look beyond our wildest dreams.

So it's great good news to have a solid candidate come forward in TN. I hope his move will encourage others to step up, in the handful of states where we still lack a viable challnger.

You kind of have to wonder, with Corker winning in 2006, what the rest of the state thinks about both of the state's Senators being from East Tennessee.  I think McWherter, with his family name, will play very well in West Tennessee, which is a traditionally Democratic area, and he won't have the baggage of being a black Democrat from Memphis as Harold Ford Jr. did in 2006.  This race will be closer than a lot of people expect.