By Denise Ross

It was an emphatic, unequivocal statement on a conference all with more than 20 reporters Thursday morning.

I haven’t ruled anything out, Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin said.

It was the last answer to a series of questions about her plans for 2010, questions that started with a potential run for governor and ended with, “Have you ruled out a run for the Senate?”

SHS said she plans to make a decision sometime this summer, and she clearly doesn’t intend to bend to any pressure stemming from others’ waiting on her decision.

I plan to make a decision sometime this summer. It could be early summer; it could be late summer.

…

There’s plenty of time for me or anyone else to make a decision. … Those individuals who’ve expessed interest are already taking steps in the event I decide not to run for governor, to put operations in place, to let their work and ideas be known among South Dakota voters. The fact that I haven’t made a decision isn’t holding anyone else from taking those initial steps.

Herseth Sandlin said that her new baby and the rush of issues hitting Washington are factors in her decision, but she didn’t elaborate on how they might influence her thinking.

In light of the very challenging issues we’re faced with out here in Washington, in a job the voters JUST elected me to do, as well as changes in my family life - South Dakotans, I think they’ve appreciated that I haven’t started thinking about the next election quite so quickly.

I have just started those conversations in a more serious way, weighing those factors.

I still believe that a run for governor is SHS’s most likely move and a challenge to Sen. John Thune the least likely. That she won’t rule out a Senate bid tells me she’s getting pressure from inside the Beltway to take him on as the Dems flirt with the 60-senator threshold. I doubt she’d bend to that pressure any more than she will to in-state pressure about the gov’s race. And maybe they DC powerbrokers don’t want her to answer that question just yet.

So, if she were to take on Thune, would that be as bold as Thune taking on Daschle? Almost as bold? Half as bold? How would such a race rank in the pantheon of great South Dakota political match-ups?

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