Before being sworn in as Ohio's new treasurer Monday, Republican Josh Mandel traveled to Washington last week to celebrate Sen. Rob Portman's swearing in and Ohio Republican John Boehner's ascension to the speakership of the House.

A handful of sources with backgrounds in Buckeye State Republican politics said Mandel was actively working the circuit of influential Ohioans who were in the Beltway for Boehner's and Portman's events. Now, he's getting talked up as a potential challenger to Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in 2012.

Mandel, 33, was elected to his statewide post in November with 55 percent of the vote. He carried 80 of the state's 88 counties.

In part for that reason - his statewide network and name recognition - some Ohio political operatives believe he could be a stronger candidate than Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, who is a favorite among conservatives. Politico reported Monday that Jordan will not attend next month's large conservative gathering, CPAC, in Washington in protest of the inclusion of the gay Republican organization, GOProud.

Jordan recently became chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House, and that position may require too much time and political capital to push forward with a statewide bid this cycle.

The congressman told RealClearPolitics in a December interview that he was leaning "heavily against" running, which Senate Republican operatives in the Beltway said confirmed their suspicions that Jordan was less interested than those around him in Ohio have suggested.

Still, Ohio GOP chairman Kevin DeWine said last week that even since those comments, Jordan met with him and was inquisitive about the race. The Ohio-based Republican apparatus insists that Jordan is still very much a potential candidate, but some operatives think it will take a dutiful courtship by the party to get him to take the plunge.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn of Texas isn't familiar with Jordan yet, but he said last week that he met Mandel at a family wedding in San Antonio a while back and came away impressed. Mandel is an intelligence veteran of the Marine Corps who served two tours in Iraq and two terms in the Ohio House of Representatives. Cornyn, however, did not see Mandel when he was in town last week.

Assuming that Jordan remains out of the race, there is a healthy bench of developing Ohio Republican politicians who could launch Senate bids. A pitfall for the bench, however, is that many of them were just elected to new posts.

Mandel is one who just began his new job on Monday, and newly sworn-in Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor is another. Taylor, 49, who will serve alongside new Republican Gov. John Kasich, was state auditor for four years. In the 2010 campaign cycle, she was briefly floated as a primary challenger to Portman and was later selected as Kasich's running mate.

Republican sources confirm that it's a good bet that Taylor will run in the 2012 Senate race; the Ohio Democratic Party jumped on a report Monday by the Ohio News Network carrying that information.

"Voters deserve that she spend at least a few days as lieutenant governor before running for another office," ODP spokesman Seth Bringman said.

In addition to Mandel and Taylor, there's also Secretary of State Jon Husted, 43, who also was sworn into his new post after serving a decade in the state legislature. His tenure included a stint as speaker of the Ohio House.