I was in the car this morning when I heard on the news that Barney Frank was retiring and would not run for re-election.
Obviously there is a lot of snark which could be thrown around, but this represents a bigger deal than Barney. As more and more senior Democrats retire, the realization is sinking in that there is no next generation of Democrats.
The younger generation of Democrats in Congress was wiped out in 2010 (along with some senior Democrats as well). On the eve of the 2010 elections I wrote:
The Democrats face a political decapitation tomorrow.
Dozens of senior Democratic Party leaders in the House and Senate, and in Statehouses around the country, are likely to lose. Unlike Republicans in 2008, there is no next generation of Democratic leaders.
Who are the Democratic Party equivalents of Marco Rubio, Mitch Daniels, John Thune, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan or Eric Cantor?
The Republican Party has numerous rising stars. I cannot think of a single Democratic Party rising star.
Can you?
The Democratic congressional problem remains the same. Democrats in Congress have lost both their past and their future. Barney Frank’s retirement is just another example.
Now for the snark — the ad Sean Beilat ran against Frank in the last election, created by Ladd Ehlinger, Jr. (creator of the greatest political ad ever and its sequel):
Update: From Conservatives for Congress (h/t Charles):
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is the 17th House Democrat to announce a retirement this cycle compared to seven Republicans.
And all of those Republicans are trying to win higher office.
Of the Democratic retirements, eight are running for another position while nine are flat-out retiring….
Pure retirements (Dems)
Dan Borenz (Okla.)
Dale Kildeez (Mich.)
Lynn Woolseyz (Calif.)
Mike Rossz (Ark.)
Jerry Costelloz (Ill.)
Dennis Cardozaz (Calif.)
John Olverz (Mass.)
Charlie Gonzalezz (Texas)
Barney Frank (Mass.)
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Comments
He went into politics to steal and walk away from it. Now, there’s nothing left to steal. Unfortunately these Dem thieves never get prosecuted, they only go after businesses.
Barney Frank should be in prison for what he has perpetrated on the American people… and he can take Dodd with him.
I wanted to see Barney serve one more term. 15 to life.
hoping Sean gets another whack at the Barney seat….
OT … but I cannot resist. On my screen for this post I see a nice “Elect Alan Grayson” back to Congress … comlplete with a “contribute $5” button. I assume it’s an automated device placement … pretty sure it’s not the Professor 🙂
What? To replace Barney?
How appropriate, eh?
I see that Rep. Charlie Gonzalez (D-TX), the son who replaced the catatonic Henry Gonzalez (who was unable to return to the House when Newt & his gang of Republicans took over), has also decided not to run again. They cite redistricting, but Texas is getting more seats based on the census so I doubt that claim.
TX redistricting got challenged in court and won’t be completed prior to the election. Worse, the district lines for 2012 were ‘temporarily’ redrawn by 3 federal judges.
You can see where this is going…
The 2012 TX districts are an extremely favorable Democratic gerrymander, including the creation of a new majority-minority Hispanic district.
So, Gonzalez’ claim that redistricting though possible (I’m not familiar with his district) is most likely nonsense.
I am certain that the Demoncrats can find a replacement for Barney F.. Remember it is deep blue MA. This is a non-story so far as the Dems v. Reps. is concerned. As a matter of fact, it might be beneficial for the Demoncrats to seen the end of his “service” to the country.
MA lost a House seat due to redistricting. The new lines affected Barney’s district by adding a town (Newton, I think) that leans a bit right.
With Barney gone and the district more balanced, it might actually be competitive next year – especially with Obama dragging down the ticket. The R’s already have a declared candidate…
Despite the above, if Barney had chosen to run again I have no doubt he’d have won. I suspect his retirement has more to do with D prospects of regaining control of the House, the lack of influence of the minority Party in the House, and his age.
Finally, even if the D’s hold the seat, no freshman D will have anywhere near the influence Barney had as ranking D on the powerful Banking committee
Heh, speaking of which, that leaves Maxine Waters ranking D on the House Banking committee.
Remember a couple years ago what happened when Charlie Rangle lost his committee position due to his ethics issues? It left Pete Stark (D-raving mad) as ranking member and the D’s had to pressure him into letting someone else be the committee chair.
Didn’t the D’s have a rising star back when you wrote that post?
Anthony Wiener sure was on TV alot, how’d that work out?
There’s a blog entry from the NYT website detailing a somewhat bizarre Obama 2012 campaign move that dovetails somewhat with Mr Frank’s departure, the deliberate throwing of Joe Lunchpail, the man in the breadlines and soup kitchens, and the voter that put FDR into office in 1932, under the bus.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/the-future-of-the-obama-coalition/
Saw that, very interesting.
I’ve long believed that the Republican platform represents the interests of the working class – both union and non-union. D’s are the Party of Big Government. They represent people that live off of the government – either by working for it directly or living off various forms of welfare.
If the 30 point edge had over D’s with White working-class voters in 2010 holds firm (and this will be more likely if D’s do as the article suggests and stop fighting for these votes) then the Democratic Party is finished.
There simply aren’t enough ‘liberal elites’ and minorities to give them a majority of the votes. Worse, they don’t have anywhere near the hold on Hispanic voters as they do over Blacks. Never will. As more Hispanics become integrated into society, their economic interest will coincide more with the Republican platform.
D’s are in danger of becoming the Party of urban slums, college towns and capital cities.
“Who are the Democratic Party equivalents of Marco Rubio, Mitch Daniels, John Thune, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan or Eric Cantor?”
Don’t forget Mike Pence.
I have a lot of very liberal friends in Indiana. When I really want to piss them off I tell them that “IN will continue to outperform IL because Mike Pence will be their Governor for the next 8 years – and then he’ll be President.”
With these many Democrts leaving office, who will protect Eric Holder and Barak Obama from their law breaking?
“Ladd Ehlinger, Jr. (creator of the greatest political ad ever…)”
No, Fred Davis did the demon sheep ad.
We need to replace elections with a national draft. Every citizen who is a registered voter and meets the age requirements should be required to enter a lottery/draft every 2 years to select 435 people to serve as Congressmen. You would not be allowed to serve consecutive terms. You would have to serve if selected though perhaps you should have an option to defer your service…
The Senate should be elected by state legislatures.
A true “citizen’s legislature” would solve a lot of problems and truly make the House the people’s house again.
And Congress should be allowed to stay in session only about 120 days of the year. We don’t need more hearings on steroids in baseball…
Andrew Cuomo is probably the closest thing Democrats have to a star and plausible 2016 presidential contender. The Republicans are feeling the effects of our wipeout in 2006/2008 right now, just look at our candidates for president. I hope the Dems are unable to bounce back as fast as we did.
Oh, you must mean this Andrew Cuomo who was instrumental player in 1998 help causing the housing market problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1M1T2Y314
Please don’t get sucked in by Jindal. I live in Louisiana and can assure you that Jindal is not a conservative. He is another Bush.
“and in Statehouses”
In 2010, more than 700 state level House/Senate seats passed from D to R control (there’s a grand total of 7384 state House and Senate seats nationwide). This is where your bench begins its development. The 2010 wipeout at the state level will effect D’s for decades.
Pure retirements (Dems)
Dan Borenz (Okla.)
Dale Kildeez (Mich.)
Lynn Woolseyz (Calif.)
Mike Rossz (Ark.)
Jerry Costelloz (Ill.)
Dennis Cardozaz (Calif.)
John Olverz (Mass.)
Charlie Gonzalezz (Texas)
Barney Frank (Mass.)
Frank is obviously the most well known, as well as the most powerful D in this lot.
Dan Boren and Mike Ross are 2 of the 26 “Blue Dog” D’s to survive the 2010 election – which cut their coalition in half.
‘Moderates’ in Congress are an endangered species.
its been a good day
I thought Newton was extreme left. Wasn’t this the town that voted to accept Gitmo detainees a couple of years ago when obama was trying to find them a home in the US?
My mistake, its Walpole they added to Frank’s district.
There’re plenty of liberals there, but inmates at Walpole State Penitentiary aren’t allowed to vote.
Newton’s just where he gave his press conference, its not in his district and won’t be after redistricting.
As you might have noticed from my reaction to his retirement, I’m pretty excited about this news. I’ve despised Barney Frank since 1980. I grew up in N. Attleboro, MA, which used to be part of his district (he spoke at my High School graduation). Remember how the Professor felt about Patrick Kennedy? That’s how I feel now, except Frank was in office more than twice as long and did far more damage than Kennedy did. Of course, not everyone is all bad – Barney did nominate me for entrance to the Naval Academy.
1. Frank was handily reelected in 2008 despite his flagrant role in bringing on the crisis. I suspect there is more to his retirement than has come out so far.
2. @mikehinton: I agree with you about Cuomo. There may be stealthy competence there which we do not expect from a Democrat.
You made a perceptive point regarding the relationship between 2006/8 and this year’s slim Presidential pickings for the GOP. Heckuva job, George. Again.
“Frank was handily reelected in 2008 and 2010 despite his flagrant role in bringing on the crisis. I suspect there is more to his retirement than has come out so far.”
you mean there will be ANOTHER coming out of barney frank?
jeeez…
🙂
Well, this is good news for a lot of reasons, but really bad news for my pet project, Online Poker.
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1. the members of the Democrat noble class do not yield office other than to force majeure. That functionally means either being kicked out by the voters, an indictment that they cannot finesse [most can be], or death.
2. even if the Democrats remain in minority status, his committee chairmanship is still both a personal power base and a huge source of personal income and political contributions for both himself and the Democrats. Crony capitalism is very renumerative.
3. yet, he is bailing, based on announced redistricting factors that are false.
4. thus we are reduced to the initial 3 factors of force majeure.
5. there is no way that he is not going to be re-elected. This is, after all, the Peoples’ Republic of Mass. Further, there is not any indication that he has any terminal illness; although that may change later. Being a not-nice person, I am hoping for something lingering and painful; and a sudden personal revelation that there is an umbribable Deity that he has to account to would be a bonus.
6. that leaves the possibility of an indictment that cannot be dodged. Factors: a) Breitbart, I understand, has announced that he is going to release “something big” on December 4. b) if electoral politics are in fact operative in 2012 [Democrats have been indicating the other possibility]; it is pretty sure that the Republican majority in the House will increase and that the Senate majority will switch to the Republicans. That later point may [not definite because much of the Institutional Republican Party are Vichy-ite collaborators with the Democrats] indicate that the Democrats in the Senate will not be able to stall investigations of the thefts and corruption for the last few decades. Such would not be conducive to a long and quiet retirement. c) not being in office makes it easier to take himself, his ill gotten gains, and his boy-toy of the moment out of US jurisdiction.
This is well worth watching.
Subotai Bahadur
#2 He hasn’t been Committee Chair since January, ’11, when the Republicans took control of Congress. The majority party controls all committee chairs and sets the agenda – one of the reasons why Party ID is so important. Currently, he’s ranking D on the committee, R’s have the majority of seats and the Chair.
I certainly hope there’s something more to this – would love to see Barney #Occupy Prison.
Subotai Bahadur:
I like your line of reasoning.
thanks for the heads up about an imminent Breitbart announcement.
this line concerns me, but feeds into my own greatest fear: “b) if electoral politics are in fact operative in 2012 [Democrats have been indicating the other possibility”.] ‘nuf said about that: the unspoken is sufficiently horrible.
My second greatest fear is hacking of enough voting machines to turn the election. In the past, the Not-Democrats had only to win by a majority – plus the margin of voter fraud/voter registration fraud – say 4-5%. (Republicans lost any close elections after the votes were counted when “forgotten” ballot boxes of votes were discovered in the trunks of Democrat voting officials’ cars – a la Al Frankenstein.) Now, we are faced with another Harry Reid type victory election (this time for the highest office in the land) wherein voters in Nevada reported watching their cast vote change before their eyes – only to learn soon after Election Day that the SEIU “maintained” the voting booths in Nevada.
Are there any brilliant IT companies out there which can invent a device to sweep voting machines for planted hacking devices – much as spy organizations use electronics to sweep rooms for ‘bugs’?
Who is the real RINO? (Things I didn’t know about Newt)
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69231_Page2.html
Politico is trying to play us like a fiddle. Ever since Newt’s surge started they have been going after him non-stop claiming he’s not a real intellectual, he’s a RINO, etc. Depending on which day it is Newt’s either an extremist who cannot win (read, vote Romney) or too RINO (read, vote Romney). Politico wants Romney, see my prior post, https://legalinsurrection.com/2011/11/the-republican-candidate-from-politico/
He who quotes Politico quotes bovine offal. Don’t waste your time, it only reflects on you.
Ha,ha,ha!
I would add that “you are known by the sources you quote as an authoritative source”.
[…] Barney Frank retirement has two other implications for the Obamination Dimocratic Party (via the Professor at Legal Insurrection): “As more and more senior Democrats retire, the realization is sinking in that there is no […]
Eight of these Nine Democrats retiring have a Z in their surname..?
Pure retirements (Dems)
Dan Borenz (Okla.)
Dale Kildeez (Mich.)
Lynn Woolseyz (Calif.)
Mike Rossz (Ark.)
Jerry Costelloz (Ill.)
Dennis Cardozaz (Calif.)
John Olverz (Mass.)
Charlie Gonzalezz (Texas)
Barney Frank (Mass.)
When you see the rats jumping off you know the ship is sinking.
The reason why the fat rat known as Frank would bail out is because he senses that the ship of state is sinking.
This does not bode well for the nation. If a double-dealing, lying, cheating, hypocritical sack of snot like Frank doesn’t see a profit in staying in politics then things are headed for a major shakeup and quite possibly not anything good.
Best keep your eyes open, people. It’s gonna get bumpy.
Obama was supposed to be their rising star… Here in CA we have the former SF mayor is a noted airhead Gavin Newsom. He wanted to run for the governorship, but figured he’s over his head, which, I suppose, makes him smarter than Obama. So now he’s the lieutenant governor, which is pretty much an honorary position.
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