After some very public hesitation, Washington State Senator Patty Murray has agreed to head the fund raising committee that's in charge of making sure the 21 Democratic Senators who are up for election in 2012 have plenty of financial help.

Among those up-for-election Senators: Washington's Maria Cantwell, who is presumably quite pleased that her colleague will have her hand on the money spigot.

Now, before you go sending Murray a letter of congratulation, remember: This isn't a job that senior people in D.C. were exactly clamoring for—you get tons of blame if things go poorly, you get relatively little public praise if things go well, and you're heading into a year in which Democrats are defending 21 seats while Republicans are only defending ten. Which is probably why Murray didn't exactly leap at the opportunity when it was first mentioned.

But she owed a lot people in D.C. for all the attention her campaign got (Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton all visited Washington on her behalf), plus she proved in her campaign against Dino Rossi that she's got the major qualification for heading up the DSCC: She knows how to mow through a tough Republican challenger.