This is just awful! Senator Byron Dorgan is announcing he will not run in 2010 for his Senate seat.
Dorgan, a moderate who was first elected to the Senate in 1992 after serving a dozen years in the House, said he reached the decision after discussing his future with family over the holidays. Dorgan, 67, said he "began to wrestle with the question of whether making a commitment to serve in the Senate seven more years was the right thing to do."
"Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life," he said in a statement.
Dorgan's decision stunned members of his party, who control the Senate but are facing spirited challenges from Republicans in several states. Democrats were confident heading into the new year that Dorgan would run for re-election even as rumors intensified that Republican Gov. John Hoeven would challenge him in November.
Ignore the rest of the article cited. Dorgan has one of the highest approval ratings by his constituents in the Senate.
Also, while the article claims Dorgan is a moderate he has been categorized as a Progressive, a Populist, a liberal, and a blue dog. In other words, he isn't bought and paid for.
This is a great loss for the Populist cause. Dorgan has been one of the most economically astute, grounded in reality, Senators in ages. He also runs the Democratic Policy Committee. It was Dorgan who predicted disaster when Glass-Steagall was repealed.
Chris Dodd is gone as well
The Senate could go to the GOP, not sure about the House still.
I was hoping Dorgan could get some real power in the Senate
to actually do something instead of pass corporate lobbyists written legislation.
Chris Dodd is retiring because he's not going to get 30% of the vote if he runs. They blame him for the financial implosion due to all of the "favors" of the past.
His leaving
should really shed a light as to how broken and corrupt the system is. He's one of those guys who wasn't a primadonna like some others in the Senate. This guy was there to do a job for his state, and the fact that he came from a pretty conservative state and was still re-elected, was testamony to how well he did that job. He knew the deal on trade, and other stuff.
But no, the one time he asked for something, importation of Canadian drugs, the Party said no. Indeed, they cut him off at the knees. And why? Because Rahm and Obama are still playing the politics of my hometown of Chicago. Because political parties today are nothing more but vehicles of power and profit for some. It was more important to get the money from the drug companies, to establish a new "feeder fund" for the Democratic Party.
I often wonder how many are kicking themselves now
for endorsing Obama over Hillary so early. Dorgan was one and I was very surprised and not surprised they screwed him over on something so basic either.
I'm wondering that too. I mean super majority, Dems control government and even something so basic as getting lower drug prices (the drugs are made overseas anyway) and they screw him (us).
He runs the Democratic Policy committee, has all sorts of experts in, touting very practical policy ideas...
and of course when it comes to legislation, it's all ignored and buried.
So, I'm thinking you may be right and he just threw up his hands and thought under those circumstances and he still cannot get anything common sense in a bill....
age 67, might be time to enjoy life instead of battling a futile fight.
I'd say it's a real bad sign because he's not one who obviously gives up easily.
Conn would still go D in my opinion
Richard Blumenthal is the State's AG, and he's popular. There are two others as well on the Democrat's side, besides' Lieberman. The Republicans still have Linda McMahon (the Wrestling lady), some rep, and fund manager Peter Schiff.
why Dodd is "retiring"
The DNC was working on him to "retire" so they had a prayer's chance of keeping the seat "D".
It's Dodd, the mortgages, Fannie/Freddie, the bail outs and him sitting on the Senate Banking committee the entire time. Connecticut is going to kick him out and his latest legislation looked like a 8 month exercise in rat maze to hide the fact he still is doing finance lobbyists bidding.
I read it (and of some of these I have to give up it's so odious) and on first pass it was loaded with loopholes (exceptions) at almost every clause.
This is why I find partisan politics so odious, it's all "D" and "R" vs. good legislators representing their constituents vs. the corrupt majority.
You end up with corporate agenda mit women's right to choose vs. corporate agenda without.
I wanted Dorgan to run for Pres.
Good for Sen. Dorgan.
Why stick around? The leader of his party stabbed him in the back over importation of pharma drugs.
Both political parties (oh, Robert that includes Hillary Clinton) are bought and paid for and the political system is completely broken.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
BTW, why is protectionism OK for pharamceutical industry
but not OK for manufacturing sector? The amount of campaign contributions? Wage suppression? Level of union participation?
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Ah ha! Now here's something
Ah ha! Now here's something that won't be asked in the mainstream media!
found another reason for Dorgan exit
I didn't know this but Dorgan was responsible for initiating a host of "left" think tanks to counter AEI and the Heritage foundation. Well, well, one of those "think tanks" recently put forth a serious corporate agenda in "guest workers"....
which Dorgan knows will crucify U.S. labor (Dorgan was a huge helper of the AFL-CIO) and is also something the AFL-CIO is against.
i.e. his "left think tanks" are spewing biased corporate lobbyist written B.S. now the same as the "right think tanks"....
I'm sure getting his policy initiatives, the facts compromised didn't help matters.
Also, I think ND is probably a really good indication of the country. When you get some reality based Dems who have agendas and policy positions that are common sense, based in economic reality, for the middle class....they can win and win big in what are labeled "conservative" states...
you get these corporate liberals, i.e. corporate agendas w/ choice.....they lose big time.
I don't think it's about "liberal vs. conservative" here, I think it's about sane, practical policies that will help working people and then you get these corporate liberals in there and the people say "screw this" and would prefer to have a corporate conservative for at least they aren't going to spend more of their money (or spend less a corporate liberal) while enacting corporate welfare.
That's my take, watching ND, VA, IA, MO, IN, OH....
But what's another take? It appears a true Populist/Progressive, one that really is aware of how policy affects the U.S. working stiff, middle class.....
if they are ethical, not corrupt and stick to their guns...
this implies they can win anywhere in the country and there is no "blue-red" state map after all.
Sorry to hear that about Dorgan, but glad about Dodd
Dorgan had a mixed record, I greatly appreciated his stand against the passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to demolish Glass-Steagall), but thought he came onboard against jobs offshoring rather late in the game ("Take This Job and Ship it"); as it's been going strong for well over thirty years now.
But he has been more consistently populist, or progressive, than Sherrod Brown and a number of others who are frequently cited as liberal!
Dodd, on the other hand, I've always considered to be in the pockets of Wall Street! At least two, perhaps three, specific pieces of legislation were passed in congress to curb the greed of his father, the former Senator Dodd (he made a fortune as a foreign registered agent when he was in the senate --- instead of spending his time as he was paid to -- working on behalf of the US citizenry!).
No, Dodd's record is far from sterling...he only began to more left as his polls dropped.
Dodd vs. Dorgan
I completely agree on Dodd and glad to see CT finally getting a clue on their representatives. Too bad they are way too late on Leiberman, although Ned Lamont was a terrible candidate. Sorry but he was that classic liberal crud with no economic meat based on reality, I'm super rich, now I want a seat in the Senate, I want to "help people" but make sure I enable policies which will in reality screw the middle class, elitist type.
Ya know, the type who enables more offshore outsourcing yet wants to send billions to some African country on some education program, meanwhile we have pockets of poverty so deep in the U.S. only 50% graduate from high school and are malnourished....
hopefully this describes what I'm referring to, that super rich "we want to help people" feel superior and push their world view onto the middle class, but if their corporate pals want something, absolutely no problem there type....
i.e. DLC leadership types.
Lieberman's approval ratings are now ~25%.
On Dorgan, I'd glad he's got one of the best records on sane econ of them all, maybe Bernie Sanders tops him, but he's been dead on.
While others will claims he's against something because of "such and such" say coal of his state....there are a host of economics bloggers pointing out cap& trade isn't going to do much but create another fictional market place where Goldman Sachs is going to get a whole lot of money from a whole lot of fees.
I believe Dorgan signed onto a host of legislation that of course was buried in committee on offshore outsourcing and I know he has been seriously involved trying to do something about trade for a very long time, long before he wrote his book.
Who wonders if Dorgan kind of said "you just screwed me" Obama administration, Democrats and as a result, since you just put your corporate deeds, twist my arm votes on me....
which cause my seat to now be in jeopardy (unfairly), I'm going to give you payback as my last exit. Lose the super majority you @&*)s.
I really wonder but I wish so much Dorgan had the leadership role in the Senate and/or ran for Pres.
Financially speaking,
it might be because JPMorgan Chase and the Rockefeller family own over half the existing pharmaceutical companies, last time I checked.
Now, the Rockefeller family is the single largest shareholder in JPMorgan, so one might wonder if they own even more of the pharma industry through JPMorgan, but that has been more difficult to track down?
Oh Hillary you won't hear me argue that one
She is especially bought and paid for by NASSCOM, the India business offshore outsourcing companies.
No, you won't hear me argue with you, just during the primaries, she had better policies than Obama, esp. on trade.
Her Senate voting record was also better.
Anyway, during the primary I was very shocked to see so many voted in in 2006 on strong "reform trade, curtail outsourcing" etc. type of positions to endorse Obama so heartily for he clearly was against a lot of what they supposedly claimed were important issues to them.
McCaskill is one. Tester is another, Dorgan was a huge surprise.
Anyway, now that the results are in since it's been a yr. Obama has been Pres. and we cannot even get cheaper drug prices, identical to Bush Corp....
I'm wondering if they all regret this or don't care.
Disagree on Hillary
I disagree with you on Hillary and Obama, they both had execrable campaign aides and managers working on their behalf. Since Hillary has been Sec'y. of State she has supported the overthrow of the democratically-elected president of Honduras, who was starting to move in a populist direction (via her position as chair of the Millennium Change Corporation, where Geithner serves as second chair); also (as you mention) her strong support for offshoring to India (where she gave a speech to them, on her second trip there, promising more Americans to be laid off and their jobs offshored there -- what absolutely treasonous behavior!!!), her speech before the Council on Foreign Relations and numerous other BS on her part.
Also, President Obama has done exactly what Hillary did with regard to this "healthcare reform" (despite all the revisionism history to the contrary): he had secret meetings with members of the health insurance and pharmaceuctical industries, then put forth legislation which would aid and abet them. Recall that Hillary held confidential meetings with members of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, then generated a 1,000 plus page report, favoring the HMOs, to the detriment of the citizenry.
And I would submit both Hillary's, Obama's and Edwards' voting records all sucked to a great degree [disclaimer: I voted for McKinney in 2008, Nader in 2000].
People keep yearning for the good old days, but forget that the two VPs who ran back in 2000 were clones of each other: Cheney and Lieberman!