BOISE - Idaho schools chief Tom Luna was at dinner with his wife, Cindy, after his "Students Come First" education reforms cleared the 2011 Legislature, when a stranger stopped by his table.

"This guy I'd never met came up and said, 'Word on the street is you're the next governor,' "Luna said, relaxing in his Nampa home's dining room. "The next day I was driving to work and somebody rolled down their window and flipped me off. I called Cindy and I said, 'OK, we're about 50-50.'"

Hand gestures aside, Luna's catalyst role behind reforms coveted by Idaho conservatives - they promote Internet classes and slash union negotiating power - puts him in position to vie to be Idaho's next state chief executive, provided he wants the Republican nomination and Gov. Butch Otter bows out of a third term, which he could still seek.

This early, the 52-year-old Luna's not declaring that he's running, but the subject "comes up often"

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in informal conversations with supporters, he said.

One question is whether a Luna candidacy could become a drag race with another rising conservative star, GOP U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador, now making noise as a first-term deficit hawk in Washington, D.C.

If Labrador, 43, wins 2012 re-election to Congress, that also could be a powerful springboard to the governor's seat in Boise.

"I hear more people talking about Raul Labrador than Tom Luna," said former state Senate Majority Leader Rod Beck, the conservative leader who helped shutter Idaho's GOP primary to all but registered party members earlier this year.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Labrador said he's concentrating on issues like the current debate over the debt ceiling and getting the federal deficit under control, declining to discuss 2014.

Foes of Luna's reforms were successful in getting a repeal initiative on the November 2012 ballot, which some see as a setback for him. But if the measures survive - and there's plenty to suggest they will, given Luna's 21 percentage victory over his Democratic rival last November - that could be viewed as a barometer on the superintendent's future political fortunes.

Opponents insist Luna misled voters about what he was planning for schools when he said nothing about his reform plan before November's election.

"The notion of a 'Gov. Luna' I find very troubling," said Michael Lanza, a Boise resident who helped collect 74,000 signatures to get three repeal measures before voters next year. "I do think our referenda questions next year will be considered a referendum on Tom Luna's leadership. If people were really happy with Tom Luna's plan, we would not have succeeded in getting that many signatures."

With the May 2014 primary still almost 3 years away, others are also in the mix to lead Idaho, should Otter exit.

When Brad Little was named lieutenant governor two years ago, some thought Otter was elevating the Emmett rancher's profile for a statewide race.

Attorney General Lawrence Wasden is also mentioned in the calculus of those who could seek higher office.

But Idaho's current GOP landscape would appear to favor a conservative Republican like a Luna or Labrador, since the closed primary likely means only registered Republicans will participate. Democrats and GOP members agree that perceived moderates like Little or Wasden may struggle in that environment.

In an interview in his 2nd floor Capitol offices, Little said in most places "I'd probably be way over on the right."

Still, his record includes potential liabilities.

He backed Otter's failed gas tax and registration fee hikes in 2009, while Labrador made a name for himself helping kill them. And as a state senator, Little voted against putting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the ballot, before finally supporting the measure in 2006.

Little in 2008 was the lone lawmaker representing Canyon County to vote to require car emissions tests to protect air quality - tests that are hated among many rural southwestern Idaho residents as intrusion of big government.

Wasden's record also shows him siding with more moderate Idaho Republicans.

Back in 2008, for example, he favored giving former Republican Party Chairman Kirk Sullivan another term, while Luna joined Labrador in helping oust Sullivan because he opposed closing the GOP primary.

And on the Idaho Land Board, where Wasden sits with Luna, the attorney general is sticking by his vote last August to buy a storage business to boost investment returns for schools. Luna, who originally favored the deal, has switched sides, called his vote a mistake and sided with conservatives who insist the purchase put government in competition with the private sector.

But just how those stances would impact his 2014 candidate appeal remains to be seen, the three-term AG said.

"In three years, a lot of stuff can happen," he said. "Am I considering my options? Yes. A race for governor is one of those options. There are others."

Luna and Labrador have similarities.

They're members of The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, as is Wasden. As kids, Labrador and Luna spent time in Las Vegas, Nev., Labrador as the Puerto Rican-born son of a single mom, Luna a poor Hispanic kid whose family lived for nearly a year in a tent.

Luna and Labrador are also friends, important because Labrador has deferred to allies in the past. The immigration lawyer only entered the 2010 congressional race after another buddy, state Rep. Ken Roberts of Donnelly, exited.

So if Luna jumped in, Labrador might be reluctant to challenge him.

If Luna does decide to run for governor, there's another reason not to bet against him.

Though he admits to not having a runner's physique, Luna has completed three marathons - to stay fit and ward off the heart trouble that killed his father, he said.

But there's another, deeper motivation behind why Luna has again and again finished these 26.2 mile slogs on painful knees, one that provides important insight into the personal ambition that's propelled him from being a homeless kid in a tent in the Nevada desert to Idaho's top education job.

"People don't think I can," Luna said.