Hard to keep track of who's in, who's out for 2010

Many of you probably don't remember the big election year of 1992.

Back then we had an open U.S. Senate seat, an open governor's seat, an open U.S. House seat and on and on.

There were more candidates than you could shake a stick at.

And there were also people getting in and out of races right and left.

2010 is starting to look, and candidates are starting to act, like 1992.

We have a quasi-open governor's race. (Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, has to run on his own to fill out the last two years of former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s term.)

We don't have an open U.S. Senate race, but incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett (who won that 1992 open race) has some credible challengers within his own party.

And guys are getting in and out of races right and left.

This past week another Republican announced that he wasn't going to run for governor next year.

And another GOP guy who had been thinking about running for governor, but decided not to, said he was going to run for Senate, but has apparently decided not to do that, either.

Oh, and Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who actually was running for the Senate, got out of that race, also.

Those who said they were going to run in 2010, but now say they won't, say they will "seriously" consider running for some major office in 2012. Maybe.

It's like the old joke, you don't know the players unless you buy a team program at the game.

But in Utah politics, some people keep trying to get on the team, or off the team, during the playing season.

All this puts pressure on newspaper and TV editors to make a tough call. When is it news when someone doesn't get in a political race?

That's kind of dog-bites-man stuff — so what?

Meanwhile, we're still writing stories about some guys, like Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, who remain sitting on the fence — maybe they'll run next year for a high office, maybe they won't.

For years in Utah, especially in GOP politics, once you won a high office it was yours until you died, retired or got caught up in a really big scandal.

(The scandal part didn't happen much.)

The last Democratic governor was the late Scott M. Matheson, who won a second term in 1980.