Makes Ya Dizzy
There have been several recent announcements of Republican members of Congress who will not be running this election year, former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert being the most notable. There are at least 6 GOP no-shows for the House so far, and one for the Senate (possibly two if Pete Dominici’s health falters).
It signals a disastrous turn for the GOP, as it likely means that the GOP will lose several seats to Democratic challengers. They’re in particular trouble in Ohio, where Rep. Pryce won by a razor-thin margin last election and already two desired GOP replacements have turned down the offer to run in her place.
Fox News, of course, is still shamelessly plugging on as the GOP’s propaganda arm. Their headline?
“GOP Making Early Room for New Faces in Congress“
And some of them will be Democratic! How nice of the GOP to make room for them.
The spin over at Fox is such that you can’t really blame them for being perpetually dizzy like that.
It just so happens that Pryce represents me in the House, and I’ve been trying to vote her out of office in every election for the last several. Senator Voinovich, who is probably undefeatable in Ohio, has been signaling for quite some time now that this will be his last term in the Senate, so his seat may swing Democratic as well. Also, I believe the Republicans are defending more seats overall in 2008 than the Dems, so an expansion of Democratic control seems fairly likely.
On the other hand, the Democrats haven’t done a lot that I can really support in the time they’ve been in control. If they don’t start doing a better job than they have been so far, they really don’t deserve to be in power. 😉