Late Friday, it was leaked that Senator Hagel, who broke openly with the White House and its R-ubberstamps over the merit of a surge, will join the senior Senator from Virginia in not seeking re-election. (Senator Johnson, D of South Dakota, was welcomed back to the Senate floor this week, after recovering from an illness that threatened to put his seat wide open).
Hagel, of course, got his burn notice a short while back, while Senator Warner was probably just waiting to see how the Iraqi stabilization effort would turn out before deciding.
Let's hope that Domenici is next in the 'retirement' queue.
With Senator Craig leaving, sooner or later, and Stevens under a cloud, too, some real euphoria that the Democrats may pick up "a lot" of seats may appear, but I've looked at the list of those up for re-election, and it's no cake-walk for the Dems.
New Hampshire (Sununu) and Colorado (open seat) seem most likely pick ups, but most of the others, including Maine, Minnesota, Louisiana all appear to be hotly contested. McConnell has a war chest. In some places like Oregon (and possibly New Mexico), the democrats don't seem to have an exceptionally strong candidate, yet. Nebraska is quite red and Bob Kerry may well take a lot of persuading to run for the seat.
Separately, if the 'gay vote' ever decisively swung the election in one of these states, that would reshape gay-politics at the national level ... maybe. Now, could I move to NH, CO, NM, or OR just to vote in '08? Yeah, maybe.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Senator Hagel Goes Out With Friday Dump
