Topeka ? Claiming bragging rights for better public schools and a stronger economy, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Friday the state’s future is “as boundless as the Kansas sky” as she kicked off her re-election campaign.

The Democratic governor also tried to pre-empt Republican criticism by promising her campaign would emphasize a “message of progress,” rather than “side with those who only look back.”

“Our best days still lay ahead,” she told about 400 cheering supporters gathered at the Statehouse’s south steps. “We have a choice between our vision for building on what’s right with Kansas and our opposition’s belief in only pointing to what’s wrong.”

“The future now lies before us, with opportunities as boundless as the Kansas sky,” she added.

Though a Democrat in a traditionally Republican state, she begins her quest for a second four-year term in a strong position. She has even gained some national notoriety, named by Time magazine last year as one of the nation’s five best governors.

“I think we’ve had a great 3 1/2 years of progress in Kansas, and I’d like to keep that progress going,” Sebelius told reporters after the rally. “We’re more prosperous, more secure, and I think that’s a message I’m going to be carrying to Kansans from border to border.”

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signs a campaign sign for Rehan Reza on Friday after she announced her plans to run for a second term, on the steps of the Statehouse.

She didn’t bring a running mate to her rally. She still hadn’t settled on a potential successor to Lt. Gov. John Moore, who announced last week that he planned to retire.

She said she would make the decision next week but wouldn’t drop any hints about her choice.

Her rally came a day after legislators adjourned their annual session. For months, Sebelius declined to talk publicly about a re-election campaign, professing to concentrate on her legislative agenda.

Lawmakers approved a plan to boost school funding by $541 million over three years, to more than $3.5 billion, in hopes of meeting a Kansas Supreme Court mandate to increase funding for public schools. They also enacted tougher sentences for sex offenders, including 25 years for some first-time offenders who prey on children.

Republicans, who control the Legislature, watched with frustration as Sebelius garnered favorable publicly from both initiatives and as her administration took credit for the state showing job growth in 24 of the past 26 months.

“All of the heavy lifting, all the ideas, all of the details, had to be worked out by the Legislature,” said David Kensinger, Shawnee County’s GOP chairman. “At the end of the day, she brings a pen and takes credit for the whole thing.”

Six GOP candidates are seeking the right in the Aug. 1 primary to challenge Sebelius in the Nov. 7 general election, including Sen. Jim Barnett, from Emporia; former House Speaker Robin Jennison, of Healy; and Ken Canfield, of Overland Park, the founder of an institute on fathering.

House Speaker Doug Mays acknowledged it’s difficult to defeat an incumbent governor but said Kansas’ GOP heritage will help the Republican nominee.

“I expect the race will be closer than people would imagine,” said Mays, R-Topeka, who briefly was a gubernatorial candidate before dropping out.

In her 2002 race, Sebelius held her Democratic base while wooing independent and moderate Republican voters on issues such as education, capturing 53 percent against conservative GOP nominee Tim Shallenburger.

She began this year with more than $1.75 million in campaign funds, and there is little doubt she can raise much more. In 2002, she collected a record $4 million.

But the 58-year-old governor’s record has some smudges.

In 2004, she proposed phasing in more than $300 million in tax increases to provide additional money for public schools, an idea legislators quickly rejected. The next year, her proposal for a $50 million increase in tobacco taxes to fund health care initiatives went nowhere. This year, legislators overrode her veto of a bill allowing Kansans to carry concealed guns.

And if Republicans couldn’t dispute that the economy is better than it was when Sebelius took office, they could argue it should be growing faster. Some suggested that by embracing the school finance plan, she was leading the state toward a tax increase or expanded gambling.

A month ago, her campaign paid a $1,500 fine after the state Governmental Ethics Commission concluded that it had illegally solicited contributions from lobbyists.

Mays suggested Sebelius also could be vulnerable because she supported a 2004 law granting illegal immigrants who are living in Kansas and seeking citizenship lower in-state tuition rates at state universities, community and technical colleges.

“The issue of illegal immigration is going to surface in this campaign at some point, not so much because the candidates are pushing it but because it’s so much on the minds of average voters,” Mays said.

She is the first Democratic governor to seek re-election since John Carlin in 1982. Joan Finney, who won the office in 1990, didn’t run for a second term.

Sebelius’ father, John Gilligan, also a Democrat, served as Ohio’s governor in 1971-75, making them the first father-daughter governors in the nation.