Jay Inslee, Washington Congressman, Resigning To Focus On Gubernatorial Campaign
Last edited Sat Mar 10, 2012, 05:08 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Huffington Post
Congressman Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) will announce on Saturday that he is resigning from Congress to devote time to his run for governor, a Democratic source tells The Huffington Post.
The move should allow the long-serving Washington Democrat to up his name recognition across the state, which has been one of the difficulties facing his gubernatorial campaign. The trans-continental commute from D.C. to Washington has severely limited the amount of time Inslee has been able to campaign in the state.
The announcement will leave Democrats one vote smaller in the House, but officials running the Democratic gubernatorial races are surely pleased by the move. As recently as February 14, the Seattle Times was reporting that "some Democratic operatives have been quietly agitating for Inslee to quit Congress and concentrate on campaigning full-time. Inslee has said he has no plans to do so."
Inslee is challenging the state's Attorney General Rob McKenna to replace Democrat Christine Gregoire, who has said she will not seek reelection. The Real Clear Politics polling average in the race has him down 6.3 percentage points, but a recent PPP poll had the two tied.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/10/jay-inslee-resigning_n_1336752.html?ref=politics
Rep. Inslee to resign from Congress to focus on Washington state governor's race
http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/10/10635648-rep-inslee-to-resign-from-congress-to-focus-on-washington-state-governors-race
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)KT2000
(20,586 posts)Inslee really needsd to get to work. McKenna is so conservative but pretty good at hiding it.
iemitsu
(3,888 posts)or washingtonians will be looking at the kinds of legislation that alec is pushing in states with republican governors.
anti-union, anti-women, anti-education, etc.
i'm not ready for washington to join those ranks.
rsmith6621
(6,942 posts)I forget how this works.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I'm not sure if they'd bother having a special election this close to the primary and general, though.
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That, and it would make him look desperate and possibly pathetic. The Washington state 'Pugs probably already have the "carpetbagger" ads in the can in case of just such an eventuality.
It would be better for Dennis to finish out his term(if he was thinking of relocating)then move out to Washington, get some sort of work as a professor or something, then stand in '14.
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The idea was, however, that he might do that INSTEAD of standing again in Ohio. Once he committed to running for re-election. the Washington move ceased to be an option...at least for this year.
What he COULD do would be to, say, move to Washington, get a job teaching at Evergreen State or U of W, and then seek office there, in 2014 or 2016.
Interesting side note to this...in the run-up to the 1970 congressional elections, knowing that Hubert Humphrey would challenge him for renomination to his Minnesota U.S. Senate seat, and knowing that the party establishment there would do all they could to put Humphrey in and force him out out of the false belief that it was his fault that Humphrey lost, Eugene McCarthy at least considered moving to either New York or California(in New York, ironically, he'd have been seeking Bobby Kennedy's old Senate seat)...and it was felt that he'd have a good chance of winning a Senate race in either state.
McCarthy, like Kucinich, chose not to do that(however, in McCarthy's case, he simply decided not to seek re-election, a choice that ended up casting McCarthy into the political wilderness, from which he never really escaped).