Politicians Run From the Senate

[Snellius]

WASHINGTON — The world's most exclusive club is facing a surprising problem: A lot of people don't want to become members.

With elections for the U.S. Senate only a year away, leaders of both political parties have gotten the cold shoulder from many people they begged to run.

It has been 10 months since Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) announced he would retire in 2004; Democrats still have no serious candidate to replace him. Republican hopes of toppling Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who won by only 428 votes in 1998, suffered a blow when a popular GOP House member said no. Incumbents anticipating tough reelection fights in Arkansas and Missouri are breathing more easily now that some formidable potential opponents have declined to run.

Even the White House, which recruited some of the GOP's strongest Senate candidates for 2002, has come away empty-handed in several states where President Bush tried to persuade popular politicians to run.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-senate9nov09,1,6477889.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Nlighten1]

1. Interesting

No one wants to help out Bush?

[baby_bear]

2. This is actually very sad.

For so many on both sides of the aisle to take a pass is amazing.

The way things are right now, I don't see how anyone would want to be there, Democrat or Republican. Even when Frist speaks, he comes across as merely a pawn of the White House (Rove). And the Dems have virtually no voice. Who needs it?

It's not the way it was supposed to be. Cheney et al.have turned the whole institution on its head.

The people were right for so many years when they did not vote in a majority in the Senate and House that was the same as the executive branch. And I mean that for whatever party may be sitting in the White House. The nation needs checks and balances, and that barely exists these days.

s_m

[tsipple]

3. Other States

North Dakota: John Thune may run for the House seat (Janklow), not Senate against Tom Daschle. Stephanie Herseth is running for the seat for the Democrats, and she's a wonderful candidate.

Colorado: Where's our candidate?

[RC]

5. I think you mean South Dakota.

[tsipple]

8. Mea Culpa

And I've even been to both states. (Geesh. I can't believe I did that.)

Major apologies to all Dakotans.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Maybe candidates from both sides don't want to end up being

a brick in the wall. The Republican requirement for conformity is worse, but the Democrats don't seem to offer coattails that would appeal to a newcomer.

[Don_G]

6. And Won't With The Current DLC Calling The Shots

Pity....

[DUreader]

7. Draft Eloriel!!!!!!

I'd probably move to GA just to vote for her.

[Mountainman]

9. Must be cheney's plan to shrink the government

No one wants to be in the Senate, No one wants to stay in the military or reserves. Good start uncle dick!

[DemNoir]

10. It may be due to

The insane cost of a senate campaign.

[tom_paine]

11. An Imperial Senate is a disgusting rubber-stamp organization

So different from the Senate and House of a Free Nation.

Actually Katherine Harris is the PERFECT Imperial Senator. A wind-up creature with no morals or conscience, having trod the broken-backs (not literally, though for her granddaughter it probably will be) of disenfranchised voters.

She will support her Emperor like a wind-up doll. The PERFECT Imperial Senator.

[DUreader]

12. kick