WASHINGTON – Democrats came out hitting hard Wednesday morning less than 12 hours after news hit that Republican Dan Coats was exploring a Senate run.

"Dan Coats is a Washington lobbyist for the banking industry, who lives inside the beltway, and is registered to vote on the east coast. Sounds like a great candidate for the heartland. Was Jack Abramoff not available?" a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee said.

Dan Parker, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said Coats has been out of Indiana so long that "he couldn't sign his own petition," because only registered voters can sign the petitions Senate candidates are required to collect before getting on the Indiana ballot.

Coats, a former Fort Wayne resident and one-time member of Congress from Indiana, is a federal lobbyist. He has lived, worked and voted in the Washington area since leaving the Senate in 1998, except for a four-year assignment as ambassador to Germany for then-President George W. Bush.

Republican officials and people close to Coats began telling journalists and supporters Tuesday night that Coats had decided to re-enter Hoosier politics and had his sight set on incumbent Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.

The swift and punchy Democratic response Wednesday morning suggests Democrats are worried about a Coats candidacy in the way they were not concerned about other Hoosier Republicans who have said they would run for the GOP nomination.

"Democrats want to derail a Coats candidacy even before it gets started because they realize this is going to be a serious race," said Nathan Gonzales, political analyst for the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report.

He said the news that Coats was weighing a run was enough for the Rothenberg Report to re-evaluate its handicapping of the Indiana race.

"This is a seat we've considered to be safe," Gonzales said, "and it put it immediately into the 'competitive' category."

Some Democrats acknowledged that Coats changes the calculus in the race.

"He'll be a formidable candidate we can't take lightly," said state House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend.

Democrats used humor and brass knuckles in their reaction to Coats' announcement that he's exploring the race and is collecting signatures on petitions that would make him eligible to be on the ballot.

"Welcome back to Indiana," a state Democratic Party news release said.

"His news came "as a surprise for those of us who haven't seen or heard from the Republican in a good many years. No worries. Our welcome basket will soon be in the mail."

But Republicans were thrilled at the prospect of Coats in the Senate race.

"He's our best chance to win," said Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th, who flirted with the idea of running for the GOP Senate nomination, called Coats "the ideal candidate."

The allegations and accusations Democrats lobbed at Coats in interviews and news releases offer clues to the kind of attacks they are likely to make in a campaign -- his residency, his work as a lobbyist, his years away from Indiana. In the early reaction, none brought up Coats' conservative ideology.

Parker said Coats is "obviously more credible" than other Republicans who have already announced their candidacies, including state Sen. Marlin Stutzman and former Rep. John Hostettler.

But, he said, "do they want someone who abandoned the state and became a Washington insider?"

Eric Schultz, communications director for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said "Coats is a Washington, D.C., insider who lined his own pockets as taxpayers spent $700 billion bailing out Wall Street banks."

The firm Coats works for – King and Spalding – represented Bank of America until Oct. 1, 2008, and during the time Congress was voting on the bank bailout bill.

"Hoosiers won't ignore Dan Coats' decade as a lobbyist working the system to gain special favors for the banking industry at the time of financial collapse and at the expense of working Americans," Schultz said.

The DSCC said Coats "lobbied for Bank of America in October 2008, just as the bank was receiving $15 billion in bailout funds. Coats firm was compensated $120,000 in the period just before the Wall Street bailouts."

According to disclosure forms lobbyists must file, Coats was one of eight or nine King and Spalding lobbyists on the Bank of America case during 2008, when the firm received $480,000 from the bank. The disclosure form says all the lobbyists were lobbying Congress and the Bush administration to "improve the quality of patent examination at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office."

Parker and the national Democratic organizations quoted news articles that said Coats voted in Virginia and suggested he's a carpetbagger.

The Constitution requires a Senate candidate to be an "inhabitant" of the state, and Indiana law defines "inhabitant" as "resident." A residence, according to state law, is "where a person has the person's true, fixed, and permanent home and principal establishment; and

to which the person has, whenever absent, the intention of returning."

Stutzman said Wednesday afternoon he had no immediate plans to withdraw, but might re-evaluate if Coats qualifies to be on the primary ballot by getting signatures of 500 registered voters in each of nine congressional districts.

Souder, who had previously endorsed Stutzman, said he asked Stutzman to reconsider. Souder said he "clearly supports" Coats. Souder worked for Coats in his congressional office for a decade; Stutzman worked for Souder's congressional office for three years.

But, Stutzman said, Hoosier Republicans are looking for "a fresh face, not somebody who's been in Washington for decades."

Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said the situation "tugs my heart a little bit.… I'm pulled both ways."

"I'm a big fan of Sen. Marlin Stutzman," he said, "but I was always sorry to see (Coats) step down" when he decided not to stay in office and face Bayh in 1998.

"I still think he might have beaten Sen. Bayh if they had gone head-to-head," Long said, "but he had other plans in life, still had a family being raised and other fish to fry in his life, I guess."

Coats did not return phone and email messages by midday.

Niki Kelly of The Journal Gazette contributed to this story.

sylviasmith@jg.net