Mel Martinez is retiring from the Senate. His seat is up for reelection in 2010.

Martinez is likely retiring because Democrats have targeted the seat. Martinez is closely tied to George Bush, having served in the Bush Administration as Secretary of HUD. but this guy is really an all-around failure. Sure, he is touted for being the first Cuban-American in the Senate, but he just barely won his seat against Betty Castor in 2003, a time when the pro-war crowd was implying every Democrat was soft on terror. Martinez also led the RNC for a year, from 2006-2007, and that year saw enormous losses on the GOP side of the aisle.

Now the Miami Herald calls this race a free-for-all. But I’m not so sure. Jeb Bush is playing it pretty coy, at least as reported by Politico:

Asked whether he was interested in running for the seat then, Bush told Politico by email Tuesday night: “I am considering it.”

A source close to Bush said he’ll be thoughtful and methodical about the decision-making process. He will consider the impact a race would have on his family and his business and whether or not the U.S. Senate is the best forum from which to continue his advocacy for the issues on which he’s focused, such as education, immigration, and GOP solutions to health care reform.

The article goes on to note that Jeb is receiving calls and emails and the like urging him to run for the Senate. This guy will have the backing of both the sane Republicans, even if there are only a few left, and the whack jobs. NewsMax, for instance, that favored Republican outlet for all the lies you can handle, has been touting Jeb for quite a while. NewsMax recently ran an interview with Jeb about his thoughts on the recent Republican electoral losses, and on the future of the Party. Here’s some of the interview from NewsMax:

Perhaps most importantly, Bush said, the party must confront the nation’s changing demographics.

“We can’t ignore large segments of our population and expect to win,” Bush said. “We can’t be the ‘old white-guy’ party. It’s just not going to work, the demographics go against us in that regard.

“Among Hispanic voters, I think we need to change the tone of the conversation as it relates to immigration. In Florida, we’ve not participated much in the chest pounding and the yelling and the screaming. I mean, it just drives me nuts when there are substantive policy differences that we can show mutual respect on, but the tone needs to change. And I think we need to recruit more candidates who share our values in the Hispanic community. In Florida we’ve done that.”

Indeed, Bush, who is fluent in Spanish and married to a Mexican-American, carried over 56 percent of the Florida’s non-Cuban Hispanic vote when he won re-election to the Florida statehouse in 2002. His popularity among GOP-leaning Cuban-Americans was even higher.

Bush’s other advice on where the GOP should go from here:

The party should establish a loyal opposition and “organize ourselves in the form of a shadow government” that would address key issues, providing the public with “a loftier debate about policy” rather than mere partisanship.

On the state and local level, Bush says the GOP should demonstrate “a passion for reform.”

The party must hold fast to its convictions. “We can’t be Democrat-lite. We can’t just ‘get along,’” he told Newsmax. “We have to actually be proposing solutions to what appear to be intractable problems as it relates to education, healthcare, infrastructure. Across the board there are ways that we can show that we are truly on the side of the people that are concerned about the future of the country, without abandoning our principles.”

Sound advice to the Republican Party, but it is not surprising that NewsMax seized on the idea for a shadow government, saying Jeb should run it. They’ve got a real man crush on Jeb. Of course, a shadow government is a bit ominous. That’s the sort of thing that happens when a dictatorship takes over, not when an Obama delivers us from an Incompetentatorship.

Hey, this election in Florida will no doubt be the most watched in 2010, even if Jeb doesn’t decide to run. The Democrats just won the state, and they’ve got some momentum there. Sure, Jeb doesn’t carry all of the taint of his brother, so he may have a very good chance of winning the position. As Chris Cillizza notes, 2010 is another opportunity for the Democrats, as Sam Brownback is also set to leave office for an expected run for Governor. The Republicans will be defending 19 seats to the Democrats 16. Cillizza discounts the chance of Jeb running, and as the strongest candidate the Republican could put out there, that makes me a bit relieved. Still, having a Bush to kick around would be good for Democrat prospects for the long term, at least on the campaign trail, and it sure would be entertaining down Florida way.