Another Politician not seeking re-election

[jacobdcoates]

Has anyone else noticed that what seems to be a large number of Senators and Congressmen are not seeking re-election? Don't get me wrong I'm happy to see them go, but I get the distinct whiff of rats abandoning ship leaving. Instead of the normal screwup leaving... "I slept with my secretary, and I am..(insert meaningless apology here).



http://http://www.washingtonpost.com...l?hpid=topnews

[jtabeb]

Re: Another Politician not seeking re-election

Has anyone else noticed that what seems to be a large number of Senators and Congressmen are not seeking re-election? Don't get me wrong I'm happy to see them go, but I get the distinct whiff of rats abandoning ship leaving. Instead of the normal screwup leaving... "I slept with my secretary, and I am..(insert meaningless apology here).



http://http://www.washingtonpost.com...l?hpid=topnews

Bad link

this one works

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...021503451.html

[Crazyfingers]

Re: Another Politician not seeking re-election

Yeah, my belief is that 'they' have ran the numbers. They know the 'Vote OUT the Incumbents' is strong. They know their oligarch controlled hack is going to lose, so the puppet masters are telling them to step aside. They dont want non-oligarch politicians to gain control so they find a pretty new face to run and hope the sheep wont know the difference. 'They' aint stupid.

Adding to this the possibility is the oligarch hacks are going to ram through a bunch of crap that the sheep will hate. Making them unelectable. So they drop now, ram through the bad policies, and take the fall for it. Then the new oligarch hacks take their spots without taking the fall.

The puppet masters will fight tooth n nail to keep control of their two party system.

[jacobdcoates]

Re: Another Politician not seeking re-election

Thanks jtabeb!.

Crazyfingers, I am curious about what worse policies you think they could enact that could some how tick off more people than they already have?

I was thinking that they ran the number and realized that the Fed's financial pump were not keeping up with the water come in the boat that is the economy. Making it inevitable that the economy will really sink and fall off a cliff soon after the next election cycle and they don't want to be around for it and take the blame. Better to let some poor ambitious newly elected bastard take the blame when the economy finally does fall off a cliff and the FED can't stop it.

[Rajiv]

Re: Another Politician not seeking re-election

Another view of Evan Bayh - Bayh & '12 & '16

Yes, for Evan Bayh, its always about the Presidential calculation. He's running for re-elect in 2010, and then running as an incumbent Senator, and defending his votes between now and 2016? He doesn't like the way that looks. Much better to be out of DC, position from the outside agitator for the 'change' vacuum, and why he's the one to fix the broken system in DC.

Uniter not Divider

We're All In This Together

"I don't want to spend the next year or the next four years re-fighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s. I don't want to pit Red America against Blue America, I want to be the president of the United States of America."

Now, as an aside, those fights were some of the few times that we've actually gotten some progressive change around these parts in the past few decades, but that's another entry.

The notion that Evan Bayh, who was #2 on Obama's short-list for VP, could challenge Obama in 2012?

Let it never be forgotten that Bayh is a perennial Democratic golden boy, the keynote speaker at the party’s 1996 convention, scion of a political dynasty, proven vote-getter in a red state and, in his own mind, prime presidential timber. For him, then, the question was: even if I win, who needs six more years of dealing with these people, after which I might be 60 years old and trying to pick up the pieces of a damaged political party brand?

And don’t get him started on the Republicans! I think we have to take Bayh at his word when he quite justifiably expressed disgust not only with the jobs bill fiasco, but also when he lashed out at the Senate Republicans who opportunistically voted down a bipartisan budget-balancing commission they had previously endorsed.

Quitting the Senate was a no-lose move for the presidentially ambitious Bayh, since he can now crawl away from the political wreckage for a couple of years, plausibly alleging that he tried to steer the party in a different direction -- and then be perfectly positioned to mount a centrist primary challenge to Obama in 2012, depending on circumstances.

The idea that Bayh could run a primary challenge to Obama from the center must strike the fear of John Glenn into Barack.

No, this is about Evan Bayh jumping out of the gate, a short three years from now, running for the '16 nomination outside of DC. He's read the conservo-populist tea leaves and will have a new jingle for us by then too.

That said, I don't advise it be out of mind that Bayh would be open to a great centrist uprising that nominates his self to take ahold of the Presidency through a nonpartisan National Unity party draft. You've heard about them, right? He would.

Also Birch Bayh's (Evan's father) interview contains more about Evan Bayh's background

[Crazyfingers]

Re: Another Politician not seeking re-election

Crazyfingers, I am curious about what worse policies you think they could enact that could some how tick off more people than they already have?

The article from 2008 in Spiegel haunts me.

For seven years, US President George W. Bush refused to allow the IMF to conduct its assessment. Even now, he has only given the IMF board his consent under one important condition. The review can begin in Bush's last year in office, but it may not be completed until he has left the White House. This is bad news for the Fed chairman.
When the final report on the risks of the US financial system is released in 2010 -- and it is likely to cause a stir internationally -- only one of the people in positions of responsiblity today will still be in office: Ben Bernanke.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...562291,00.html

All the ramifications of this occuring freaks me out. Can you imagine how American citizens are going to react when they find out congress blew all that money bailing out wall street and slaying dragons overseas while our economy crashed and burned.

IMHO politicians are scared shitless of what happens when the world demands that the good ol USA take its IMF medicine.

Imagine being the politician in power the day the USA government has to take this medicine and admit they squandered everything. The international bankers have the good ol USA by the balls.

IMF policies implemented by our own government officials- that will tick em off more.

[raja]

Re: Another Politician not seeking re-election

Another view of Evan Bayh - Bayh & '12 & '16

If Bayh is smart, he'll wait till after the crash, then run in 2016 as the new FDR . . . .

[mmr]

Re: Another Politician not seeking re-election

That assumes that we're still going through the formality of holding elections by then.