Evan Bayh Throws In The Towel
Feb 15, 2010 Political
This is shaping up to be a very bad year for Democrats. Despite requests from Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel to reconsider, moderate Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana will not seek reelection stating that he still has a desire to serve the people, just not in Congress.
Evidently, the hostile environment in Congress is becoming too much for the moderates. Bayh only voted with his party 71% of the time and I am willing to bet he got beat up over votes against the agenda or that he felt pressured to vote in a manner that he did not want.
Bayh’s decision comes as a surprise to many as it looked like he would probably win reelection. I doubt that the possibility of a tough race had anything to do with his decision. He probably is genuinely fed up with the atmosphere in Congress.
Bayh probably did not agree with the Obama agenda, or at least major protions of it. He endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
Plus, he is a family man and likes to spend time with his children and attend their activities. No one can fault him for that.
Bayh’s decision caps off a trifecta that began when Christopher Dodd and Byron Dorgan announced last month that they will not seek reelection.
A commenter at the source site had a great point:
“To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills,” – Obama
Oh well.
Indiana is a conservative state and usually pretty red. Bayh is a well liked moderate but the state trends Republican. Obama won the state last year becoming the first Democrat to win it since Lyndon Johnson.
I bet the folks of Indiana have buyer’s remorse and will not go Democrat again for a long time. They are probably still asking what they have done…
Or maybe they are asking themselves the question Sarah Palin posed; “How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?
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Tags: Clinton, Congress, emanuel, evan bayh, Obama, reelection, resign
Boston Globe Is Right, Kennedy Should Resign
Aug 24, 2009 Political
Jeff Jacoby has a great article up at the Boston Globe indicating that Ted Kennedy should resign his seat in the Senate.
Kennedy is asking the Massachusetts legislature to pass a bill that allows the Governor to appoint Senators should their seats become vacant. This is very convenient since Kennedy’s seat will be vacant when he eventually succumbs to his terminal brain cancer.
However, Kennedy is the reason that the Governor cannot appoint successors. When Romney, a Republican, was Governor and John Kerry was running for the presidency Ted Kennedy asked the legislature to pass a bill requiring a special election in the event of a Senate vacancy. He did this to prevent Romney from being able to appoint a Republican to the seat, should Kerry have won. Ted Kennedy was instrumental in having the rules changed from what he now wants them to be.
You see, there is now a Democrat in the State House and Kennedy is using this lame excuse of saying people of Massachusetts deserve to have two votes in the Senate and the delay of a special election will keep them from having just that.
Too fricking bad.
Kennedy was not worried about having two votes when he asked for the law to be changed last time. He was only concerned about keeping the seat in the hands of the Democrats. I understand the partisan politics but let’s not pretend that this is all about having two votes for the state because it is not.
As Jacoby points out, Kennedy has missed all but a handful of Senate votes this year so Massachusetts does not have two votes even with the seat occupied.
Jacoby goes on to point out that if Kennedy is really concerned about the two votes he should resign so that he can be replaced and put the second vote back in the Senate.
For well over a year, Massachusetts has not had the “two voices . . . and two votes in the Senate’’ that Kennedy says its voters are entitled to. Sickness has kept him away from Capitol Hill for most of the last 15 months. He has missed all but a handful of the 270 roll-calls taken in the Senate so far this year. Through no fault of his own, he is unable to carry out the job he was reelected to in 2006. As a matter of integrity, he should bow out and allow his constituents to choose a replacement. Boston Globe
The problem with this thinking is that Jacoby indicates that Kennedy should step down “as a matter of integrity.”
Ted Kennedy had NO integrity. If he did he would not try to push for changes to the law that circumvent the democratic process of allowing the people to put a person in office. If Kennedy had integrity he would have resigned after his diagnosis and an election would have already taken place.
Kennedy has a career that is nothing but a lack of integrity.
Of course this would be a moot point if the Constitution had not been changed. Senators were appointed by state legislatures until the Constitution was amended.
That was a mistake.
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Tags: cancer, integrity, resign, ted kennedy