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State Sen. Kay Hagan of Greensboro will be an excellent candidate for higher office.

Mark Binker reports she's thinking of running against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, whom she regards as "vulnerable."

I agree Dole, a Republican, is vulnerable. She's been a disappointment. Like one-term senator John Edwards, she doesn't seem to have put North Carolina interests at the top of her agenda. Edwards probably would have lost a re-election bid in 2004 if he hadn't been on John Kerry's ticket, and Dole could lose in 2008.

But top Democrats have been afraid to take her on.

Hagan isn't timid, but she told me months ago that the fund-raising demands for a U.S. Senate campaign are daunting. She'd have to raise an average of $100,000 a week for more than a year, and doing that would consume half her time, she'd been advised.

Also, to say that Dole is vulnerable is not to imply she doesn't enjoy big advantages in name recognition or that she'd be defenseless. While Hagan, in my view, has few if any personal negatives, as a Democratic member of the N.C. General Assembly, she could be tarred with the scandals giving that institution a very bad smell.

True, the fires have been in the House, not the Senate where Hagan serves. But senators pretended they didn't even see the smoke. And it's yet to be investigated how much the Jim Black pay-to-play culture infests the Senate ruled by Black ally Marc Basnight.

I suspect that Hagan would have preferred for Congressman Brad Miller to take on Dole, giving Hagan an opportunity to run for Miller's U.S. House seat.

It also would be logical for Hagan to bid for Howard Coble's seat in Congress when Coble decides to retire -- maybe in 2010?

Hagan is a very talented leader who's capable of rising to higher office. But her odds of beating Dole probably aren't great. Is it better to fight a tough battle and lose or to wait for a better opportunity later? That question kind of answers itself.