By Lauren Phillips, CQ Staff

No one could accuse Democrat Jim Slattery, a former congressman, of being a publicity hound since he revealed to the Kansas media early last month that he intends to stage a challenge to Republican Sen. Pat Roberts in this year’s election.

Slattery — who was elected in 1982 to represent a U.S. House district in eastern Kansas and served for 12 years — gives the Democrats the experienced candidate they lacked to take on the well-funded Roberts, another former House member who did not even draw a Democratic opponent when he was elected in 2002 to a second Senate term.

But Slattery, after the initial splash created by his surprise entry into the race, has declined interview requests from media outlets, including CQ Politics. Slattery — a lawyer who has not run for office since 1994, when he lost badly as the Democratic nominee for governor — has said he will withhold further statement until he officially announces his candidacy.

There is some speculation in Kansas political circles that Slattery, who has filed with the Federal Election Commission to set up a fundraising committee, is holding off until he has raised $1 million. That would seem the least he would need to seriously compete against an incumbent who reported $2.7 million in cash on hand as of Dec. 31 and whose latest campaign finance report for activity through March 31 is due to be filed by April 15.

Slattery has created a Senate campaign Web page, though at the moment it only contains a statement of his intention to run and links for supporters to sign up for the campaign and contribute money. “While exploring the possibility of running for the U.S. Senate from the State of Kansas, I have concluded Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike want big change in Washington,” reads the statement. “Kansans are very concerned about the war in Iraq, the federal government’s deficit spending, and the economy. Kansans want change!”

Slattery added, “Together we can reclaim our country, we can restore Kansan common sense and independent judgment to the U.S. Senate.”

Slattery, despite his late start and long hiatus from politics, is a cut above the little-known candidates on whom the Democrats would otherwise have had to rely. Lee Jones, a labor union lobbyist who was nominated as the 2004 challenger to Republican Sen. Sam Brownback but lost by a margin of 42 percentage points, has stated plans to run again this year. Greg Orman, a managing director of a private equity company who has never run for office before, raised $450,000 for a campaign against Roberts but has since dropped out of the race.

The prospect of a matchup between Roberts and Slattery prompted CQ Politics to change its rating of the race to Republican Favored from Safe Republican. The new rating means that Roberts is still regarded as very likely to win, but that the idea of a possible upset is plausible.

It would, however, be an uphill battle for Slattery, as it typically is for any Democratic candidate for major office in the traditional Republican stronghold of Kansas. The Democrats have had some recent successes, including incumbent Gov. Kathleen Sebelius ’ election to two terms and their current hold on two of the state’s four U.S. House seats. But the Republicans hold both U.S. Senate seats, have strong majorities in both state legislative chambers and have carried the state in past 10 presidential contests, including President Bush’s 62 percent to 37 percent win over Democrat John Kerry in 2004.

And Slattery, once he does take his campaign public, already will have to answer some criticism lodged by Republicans who have taken advantage of his lack of visibility.

Republicans are targeting the fact that Slattery did not return home after he left his House seat open and lost the 1994 contest for governor to Republican Bill Graves by 64 percent to 36 percent. He has spent the intervening years as a partner and lobbyist at Wiley Rein, a Washington, D.C., law firm.

“He abandoned the state 14 years ago for Washington’s special interests,” charged Corrie Kangas, political director at the Kansas Republican Party. “He’s a poster child for everything gone wrong in Washington.” She added her opinion that Roberts “has a strong record of achievements standing up for Kansans.”

But Democrats counter that Slattery was a centrist Democrat during his past House tenure, and that issues he pursued then, such as reducing pork-barrel spending, restraining the federal deficit and revamping the health care system still have currency today. They also portray Roberts as a conservative hard-liner who has rubber-stamped Bush’s policy agenda, in general and in his past role as chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee.