Bill White, meet Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, who is issuing non-denial denials about his potential interest, along with everybody else in the state, in Kay Bailey Hutchison's Senate seat. Leppert's a Republican, so the field would be even more crowded from his perspective, and perhaps his entry into the race would be a step in the direction of the Rick Casey scenario, where too many Republicans split the vote too fine, thus allowing White and John Sharp to finish in the money for the runoff. Still seems unlikely to me, but hey, nothing about this so far has followed any script. Found via Greg's sidebar.

By the way, it seems fitting to mention here that Al Franken's apparent victory in Minnesota, which puts the Democrats at 59 total members (counting the two independents), might be a factor in this race as well. As Evan Smith noted a few days ago, this will put extra pressure on KBH to stay put, at least through the November, 2010 election. If that's the case, then as I've said before, it's got to make sense for at least one of Bill White and John Sharp to reconsider which race they want to run. Why not take a shot at Governor, with a 2011 or 2012 Senate race in reserve? All I'm saying is that I hope someone - in particular, someone with Bill White's ear - is thinking about the various scenarios.