On Iowa Press the other day, State Auditor Dave Vaudt ducked the
question of whether he would consider running for Governor in 2010.
While Vaudt doesn't have much of a public profile, he's still one of
two statewide Republican elected officials and has few negatives
attached to his name. However, it's worth noting that Vaudt would not
have been in the position to even contemplate a 2010 run for Governor
if the Democrats had bothered to nominate a candidate to oppose him in
2006. While leaving legislative seats uncontested hurt Democrats in
2006, failing to run a candidate for Auditor hurt Democrats even more.
With the sole exception of Denise O'Brien, who narrowly lost her
underfunded campaign for Secretary of Agriculture after it was
revealed that she didn't feed her cows, every statewide Democrat won
by a healthy margin and Democrats made gains statewide.