It’s as official as it is ever going to be: Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes is retiring, and will not run for reelection in 2006.

The question then becomes, is Martin O’Malley going to run for the Governer’s Mansion, or Sarbanes’ Senate seat? If he goes after Annapolis, he faces Ehrlich, and that’ll probably be the tougher of the two campaigns. Going for Sarbanes’ seat, he’ll most likely face Pipkin, who actually had a pretty good showing against Mikulski last November (and who is one of those stubborn fucks who just keeps coming and coming and coming until he gets elected).

And I’m sure whatever seat O’Malley heads for, Duncan’ll make a play for the other.