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Speaker of the House Paul Ryan Will Not Seek Reelection

posted by fyngyrz on Thursday April 12 2018, @08:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the they're-all-ryan-through-their-smiles dept.

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Many media outlets are saying "Paul Ryan Retires" (For example, Vox's original headline.) This doesn't mean he won't still be there until the new Congress is seated in January 2019.

Vox reports:

More and more Republicans are looking at how the 2018 elections are shaping up and deciding they want no part of them--with Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) just the latest to announce they won't run for reelection this year.

This makes 25 House Republicans and three GOP senators who are calling it quits, not counting several more who are stepping down to run for another political office (or who have already resigned). That's the highest such number[1] for just one party in decades.

Revealingly, only nine House Democrats and zero Democratic senators have so far made the same choice. (Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota resigned due to scandal, but his seat has already been filled by Tina Smith, who will run this fall.) That's a dramatic discrepancy.

Though the explanations offered for these decisions differ, and though many of these GOP-held seats are in no real danger of flipping to Democrats, these retirements are revealing how members of Congress currently view the national political environment. That is: they think there's a real possibility of a Democratic wave.

But the trend is more meaningful even than that. These very retirements could help make such a wave even bigger, because it's generally easier for the opposition party to flip open seats than it is to knock off incumbents.

[...] According to FiveThirtyEight's numbers,[2] the only time in the past 40 years there's been a bigger partisan discrepancy in [the who's not running for reelection stats] was 2008, which turned out to be a Democratic wave year.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by DrkShadow on Friday April 13 2018, @02:05AM (1 child)

    by DrkShadow (1404) on Friday April 13 2018, @02:05AM (#666299)

    So, people who feel that the current circus is too corrupt for them are walking, instead of standing to fight the problem.

    That leaves, then, a plethora of empty seats, fair opportunity for those who are willing to work within the system and maintain the status quo.

    Hail those who are running! Welcome our new shill overlords! All is how it should be, in the "Great" US of A!

    sigh.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @07:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @07:41PM (#666603)

    empty seats [...] for those who are willing to work within the system and maintain the status quo

    That's the pessimistic view.
    (Hey! Here's me being the optimist for a change.)

    In a swing state, Conor Lamb[1] just won a House seat via a Progressive Populist platform. [commondreams.org]

    as I noted [commondreams.org] shortly after Connor[1] Lamb's victory, the people are right--the [Dumbocrat] Party's leadership stands for nothing beyond getting campaign money and fashioning short term tactics. As a Party, they are completely devoid of a set of coherent policies based on values.

    Lamb ran on supporting and expanding Social Security and Medicare, reigning in drug companies, and reversing the Republican's sabotage of Obama care. Even in an extremely conservative district, this was a winning message. The Democrats' victories in Virginia also came about as a result of running candidates who embraced core progressive values from the New Deal--candidates well[2] to the left of the Party's leadership.

    [1] Only one n. TFA's author spelled it wrong.

    [2] "slightly to the Left" would be more accurate.
    In USA's Big 2, there isn't all that much spread on the political palate. [politicalcompass.org]
    People who were actual Leftists [politicalcompass.org] were purged long ago (imprisoned, deported, blacklisted from Capitalist workplaces) in the Palmer raids of the 1920s and the McCarthyite witch hunts after WWII.

    N.B. Their charts are shifted to the Left. (Stein and Kucinich are NOT Anti-Capitalist.)

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]