WASHINGTON – Add Rep. Joe Barton to the list of Republicans lobbying for an appointment to the Senate when Kay Bailey Hutchison resigns.

"I have asked to go speak to the governor about an appointment, but he has not encouraged it," the Arlington congressman said Thursday. "He just said he'd be happy to sit down with me and talk about it. I think I'd be a good candidate."

Of the politicians interested in Hutchison's seat, only one – Railroad Commission Chairman Michael Williams – had previously acknowledged lobbying for an appointment.

Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle called it premature. "There is no vacancy, so it's not something the governor is considering," she said.

Barton, a 25-year House veteran who has long harbored Senate ambitions, has not set up a campaign committee, hired staff or created a Web site, unlike Williams and at least three other Republicans and two Democrats. But that doesn't rule him out as a strong contender in a special election, he said, because "nobody yet has established themselves as a clear front-runner."

"I'm serious enough to still be thinking about it," he said.

Hutchison says she'll resign by December to focus on challenging Perry for his job.

Appointed senators, in Texas and other states, often have trouble winning elections in their own right. Hutchison beat an appointed Democrat, Bob Krueger.

Whomever Perry picks would face voters within 36 days to eight months, depending on when he sets the election.

Barton, who turned 60 last week, was elected to Congress in 1984 and is the senior Republican on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. In 1993, he ran third behind Hutchison and Krueger in the special election, and he briefly considered another run for the Senate in 2001 when Phil Gramm retired.

Barton joked that he would drop any hesitation to run if he got, say, a million e-mails urging him to run, coupled with $10 million in donations.

But noting speculation that Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a fellow Republican, would be a strong candidate for the appointment and the special election, Barton added: "People are really, really waiting on Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst ... what he ultimately does."