KS-03: Moore Won't Run Again

[ccharles000]

Here's hoping this is an isolated incident and not the start of a trend:

U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, a Democrat who confounded the GOP by winning six consecutive elections in a heavily Republican district, will not seek re-election next year, key Democrats said Sunday.

Moore, who represented Johnson, Wyandotte and a portion of Douglas counties, will issue a statement today explaining his decision and outlining his plans. Moore, 64, is expected to finish out his term, which ends in January 2011.

Maybe this shouldn't be a total surprise, as Moore was a rumored retirement in the immediate aftermath of last year's election, although he quickly resolved to run in 2010. As most of you know, open seats were where we really got killed in 1994, so hopefully Moore's reversal won't put ideas in the heads of too many other Blue Dogs feeling the heat in red-leaning districts.

"Heavily Republican" in the above quote is a bit of an overstatement, as Barack Obama narrowly won this district last year and it currently sits at R+3, making it now the most favorable part of Kansas to us. Former state Rep. Patricia Lightner is the only elected Republican already in the race (along with two unknowns), but everyone is already speculating that former state Sen. Nick Jordan (who ran in 2008, and given the trends that year, handled himself well, losing by 14 points), may now try again. Jordan is one of the few Kansas GOPers with appeal to both the parties' disparate moderate and conservative wings. As for the Democrats, most of the Dems' few state Senators in Kansas are found in this district, including Chris Steineger, who had made some noises this summer about running for Governor but didn't seem to follow through (Steineger may not be a good bet here, as he seems to have irritated most of the rest of the state's Democrats at various points).

http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/5930/ks03-moore-wont-run-again

[cecilfirefox]

1. He actually said, last I saw him, that he wasn't planning on running again.

I personally though that with President Obama being in the White House he'd plan to stay on. He'd have more of an opportunity to get things passed now than he ever had in the rest of his term.

I wonder now though who will run against him. I swear I will probably switch my voting registration to my school district as a means to vote for the democrat trying to succeed him. There is no way I could stand to have an all Republican federally represented state. Gross, just gross.

[KansDem]

2. I know what you mean...

When Vince Snowbarger won election in 1996 after Jan Meyers stepped down, I watched his victory celebration and the first...the very first statement out of his mouth was something to the effect, "Guess now I'll go to DC and get on an investigating committee!" This was during the height of the Clinton impeachment witch-hunt.

I thought, "This is 'bi-partisanship?'" It was my understanding until that moment that when someone wins public office, that person addresses everybody for their support. Victory becomes all-encompassing. For him to say that was a foreshadowing of the way the GOP "governs."

Molly Ivins said it best, "The Republicans don't like to 'govern,' they like to rule."

[WI_DEM]

3. Without him this is a district we will probably lose.

[KansasVoter]

4. Sad day in Kansas........

Some other idiot GOP person will win now.

I am really surprised he is giving up.