A
Anonymous
Guest
Democrats Fear Losing a Senate Seat
With Hillary Clinton's impending retirement as Secretary of State, President Obama has to find someone to replace her. The candidate with the most buzz is Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who has openly yearned for the job for years. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he is undoubtedly qualified for it, too. The problem is that under a Massachusetts law passed in 2004 by the Democratic-controlled legislature over then-governor Mitt Romney's veto, the governor can no longer fill Senate vacancies. If a Senate seat becomes vacant, a special election is held and Democrats are wetting their pants over the strong possibility of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who was just defeated by Elizabeth Warren, winning the special election.
The Democrats have 55 seats in the new Senate, so they can afford to lose one--right now. However, a look at the 2014 Senate calendar shows that Democrats have a half dozen vulnerable seats and the Republicans have none. Also, the President's party generally does poorly in Congress in the 6th year of his term. If Obama appoints Kerry to be Secretary of State, it won't matter now, but it may hand the Republicans control of the Senate in 2014. Kerry's qualifications aside, from a political standpoint, a Kerry appointment would be extremely foolish.
Obama has alternatives, of course. Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), who was just defeated by a fellow Democrat, Brad Sherman, as a result of California's new jungle primary system, has served as Kerry's counterpart in the House, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. While he may not be lobbying as intensively for the job as Kerry, his appointment would not trigger a special election. Yet another potential candidate is Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was defeated in a primary this year by Richard Mourdock. Lugar is respected on both sides of the aisle as an expert on foreign affairs. His appointment would make people who view bipartisanship a goal unto itself very happy. The main downside of a Lugar appointment is that he is 80 years old and the job entails a massive amount of travel. On the positive side, he would be confirmed by the Senate instantly on a vote of 100 to 0.
Yet another name being floated is that of Jon Huntsman, who served as Obama's ambassador to China until he quit to run for President. Huntsman speaks fluent Mandarin and deep knowledge of China is certainly a plus for a Secretary of State. If he is offered the job and takes it, that pretty much ends any possibilities of his running for President as a Republican, although he has openly speculated that the country needs a third party, something along the lines of the Republican Party under President Eisenhower.
I'd love to see Huntsman appointed... A fiscal conservative/social moderate that is not only educated and worldly but has common sense...
In my feeling he and Johnson were probably the best Republican candidates running this year...