We're not sure whether the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza is pulling this out of his ass or if he's heard things we haven't (quite possible), but toward the end of a blog post about Jeb Bush's forthcoming Senate decision, he includes Manny Diaz as a possible Democratic contender for the Senate seat. As far as we can tell, this is the first mention, albeit brief and possibly wrong, that Diaz has any actual interest in the seat.
We briefly threw out the idea in November, wondering what the future could hold for Diaz, before deciding that, like everyone else, he'd be a contender for an Obama cabinet position.
Then, last month, once it seemed Diaz had been passed up for the cabinet, and Mel Martinez would not seek re-election, we espoused on the idea a bit.
"Of course, there's the little matter that Diaz would have to officially change his registration to Democrat.... But Manny could contend against Bush. For one, he'd heavily cut into this perceived strength Jeb has among Hispanics. He also has the strength of being president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (perhaps earning endorsements from some of Florida's big-city mayors), and a string of other acknowledgments, achievements, and accolades."That, along with a blog post from The Real Right, is the only thing we could find touting Manny Diaz for Senate, unless Google is failing us. We've had our problems with facts from WaPo blogs before, but hey, it's a big D.C.-based media outlet saying Diaz is interested. Let the speculation begin.
