Yeah, I know, that's a totally wonky story, and I'm sure my former PoliSci professors will be mighty proud. It's not a headline grabber and isn't a "sexy" political story in anyway what so ever. But isn't the fact that that 1st term US Senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat from Arkansas- a state that went 51%-46% for Bush in '00 and 54%-46% in '04 - is running unopposed in the fall big news? When is the last time a southern state was unable to find an opponent to run against a Democrat - and a first termer at that??!!
What's remarkable about the number of Republicans that are not running for reelection this fall are the number of those Republicans that reside in what could be called "swing districts". Take my neighbor, Rep. Tom Davis, a Republican from Virginia's 11th Congressional District. Well, technically he's not my "next door" neighbor, but he lives about a mile and a half down the road (curiously in another Congressional district - he's in the 11th and we're in the 8th). The 11th CD switched from Democrat (blue) to Republican (red) in 1994, when Tom Davis beat incumbent Leslie Byrne 53%-45% as part of the "Republican Revolution". Davis has held the seat ever since then, until he announced his retirement from Congress in January of this year. He's not ruled out a return to public service, and odds are that he wants to run against Jim Webb in the 2012 Senate race (memo to Tom: good luck with that).
The 11th has seen some real changes since Tom Davis took office, and he and his 2nd wife, state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, surely saw that up close and personal when she was handily defeated in the fall '07 election by J. Chapman "Chap" Petersen, 55%-45%. This district will almost certainly go blue in 2008, though for which candidate remains to be seen and won't be known until the primary election in June of this year. Tom Davis is known to be a pretty astute political observer, so when he says something like this: "He's just killed the Republican brand.", it's not hard to understand why he and so many others are not running for re-election on the Republican ticket.
For those keeping score at home, here's a list of Congressmen and women and US Senators not running for re-election this fall:
Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.), 61, 7 terms
Tom Davis (R-Va.), 59, 7 terms
John Doolittle (R-Calif.), 57, 9 terms
Terry Everett (R-Ala.), 70, 8 terms
Mike Ferguson (R-N.J.), 37, 4 terms
David Hobson (R-Ohio), 71, 9 terms
Darlene Hooley (D-Ore.), 68, 6 terms
Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), 59, 14 terms
Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), 62, 7 terms
Ron Lewis (R-Ky.), 61, 8 terms
Jim McCrery (R-La.), 58, 11 terms
Mike McNulty (D-N.Y.), 60, 10 terms
John Peterson (R-Pa.), 69, 6 terms
Chip Pickering (R-Miss.), 44, 6 terms
Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), 56, 8 terms
Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.), 61, 9 terms
Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), 83, 18 terms
Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.), 49, 3 terms
Jim Saxton (R-N.J.), 65, 13 terms
John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), 58, 7 terms
Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), 62, 5 terms
Jim Walsh (R-N.Y.), 60, 10 terms
Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), 55, 7 terms
Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), 50, 7 terms
Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), 64, 2 terms
Larry Craig (R-Idaho), 62, 3 terms
Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), 75, 6 terms
Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), 61, 2 terms
John Warner (R-Va.), 80, 5 terms
Add to that list Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), who represents Buffalo and the western Rochester suburbs, who is caught up in the NRCC financial scandal and was part of the cover up of Mark Foley's page text messaging scandal, and barely got by a virtual unknown opponent in 2006 (winning 52%-48%). That makes two open seats in my part of Upstate NY (the other being the seat vacated by Jim Walsh, who represents Syracuse and parts west through the Finger Lakes) - and I'd give even odds that one of those seats switches to the Dems. In 2006, the Dems picked up two seats held by Republicans, Sue Kelly in the 19th and John Sweeney in the 20th. Both of those seats were hard fought, and the Republicans were not helped by Sue Kelly literally running away from a local TV reporter asking questions about her involvement in the Foley page scandal, and John Sweeney partying it up with local college students and domestic incidents involving his wife.
It is going to be a very interesting political year. I guess I'm a pessimist at heart, and coupled with a total and complete belief in "the jinx", I refuse to even venture a guess as to how things will turn out in November - but I will say that i'm feelin' kinda optimistic!
2 comments:
The reason your district is shaped so strangely, and that the 8th is so close to you, is that Tom Davis and Frank Wolf got together and carved up the Virginia Districts; they gave the apartment complexes and areas that tend to be Democratic to Jim Moran, since those areas were already a "lost cause" to the party. And the reason Tom Davis has to retire is because he got a second wife (because his first wife couldn't make enough money as a doctor to keep his greed satisfied) and set up wife #2 to collect the campaign funds that were illegal to give to him, and the voters of NoVa finally saw through the scheme and kicked her skinny butt out of the state legislature.
Yeah, I know. I still think it's weird that we're gerrymandered into the district we're in. My kids actually go to a school in a different Congressional District, even though it's only about 3 miles away.
I'm not sure that the Devolites-Davis campaign schemes had as much to do with her losing as her general attitude, missteps along the campaign (I've still got my mailer with Chap's home address listed on it), and the fact the district has been swinging from red to blue over the past few years (although Chap only won my precinct - Sunrise Valley - by 1 vote).
Thanks for your comment!
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