A leading bamboozler might be in the ride for his life, reports CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service) [original story here].

According to the Boca Raton News, the Terri Schiavo case and the debate over Social Security’s future “have divided GOP ranks and shaken Republican dominance in the eyes of the public, according to polls.” Coincidentally, against that backdrop, veteran state Sen. Ron Klein, known as a moderate, has declared that he will run in 2006 against Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., the No. 2 Republican on the Ways and Means Committee. Republicans initially said “Klein didn’t have the political legs to carry the GOP-heavy Fort Lauderdale section of Shaw’s district,” according to the paper, but “Democrats said the long-time senator . . . could easily go nose-to-nose with Shaw.”

It will be most enjoyable to watch Shaw, one of the leading proponents of privatization, face a serious political challenge for the first time in years. In another development CQ Today's Midday Update also notes that something might be up in Missouri [original story here].

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that some Missouri Democrats are privately touting state Sen. Chuck Graham as a possible challenger to Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., in 2006. Graham’s boosters point to two attributes, according to the paper: “One is his passion on the stump, especially when it comes to defending a certain type of stem-cell research called therapeutic cloning that’s now under siege in the state Capitol. The other is his wheelchair, a visible symbol of the medical breakthroughs that supporters say the research could spawn.”

Things just might be turning around for the Dems. They just might...