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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (136756)	4/16/2010 2:41:12 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 543355

I'm looking at McCain, Specter, Bennett, and Lautenberg off the top of my head because they are running again, then you have other fossils taking up space in safe seats. Byrd is the most extreme example since it's obvious he hasn't been up to the job for a while. Apart from an occasional Teddy Kennedy (and he would only be favored by some, let's be honest), most of these folks just stick around way past their prime. I respect people who know when it's time to move on, and leave at the top of their game. Politicians are especially craven about making sure their personal fame and power are perpetuated.

To: JohnM who wrote (136756)	4/16/2010 2:45:58 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543355

I would have taken Teddy Kennedy in his later years; I like Tom Harkin and Carl Levin as well. I think your point works for folk like Robert Byrd now and Strom Thurmond in his later years. Maybe Byrd now, but he made some of the most powerful speeches on the Senate floor against the Iraq war in 2002 and against the Bush administration's continual overreaching. He was about 85 at the time. Yes, he was beginning to lose it, but institutional memory and pride are important things in the Senate, and those are the kinds of things that "elder statesmen" have. Or at least can have. On the other hand, I don't put someone like Orrin Hatch in that category--unlike Byrd, I have never seen him have any propensity for shame or to acknowledge that he was wrong on important matters in the past, despite his Christian poses.