Posted on 07/17/2013 1:00:39 PM PDT by cotton1706
Sen. Mike Enzi said on Wednesday he’s not “too old” to serve, challenging comments that newly announced competitor Liz Cheney would be a younger, fresher face for conservatives.
“I’m absolutely not too old to be senator. I’m the median age,” the Wyoming Republican told CNN’s Dana Bash. “I’m in really good health, I’m on the committees that I want to be on. I have seniority, which is really trust that you develop.”
Enzi said Wyoming voters will stick with him through a primary and emphasized that his constituents won’t be convinced with money - of which Cheney has a lot.
“People in Wyoming don’t believe in long campaigns,” he said. “In fact they complain about long campaigns. It doesn’t take them long to make up their mind. And it doesn’t cost a lot of money to have them make up their minds.”
And Enzi said he doesn’t need a poll to show him voters will stick by his side. He said he’s talked to them.
“I don’t have to do a poll. I’ve never done a poll. I can tell from the conversations I’ve had,” he said.
Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, announced in a video Tuesday that she will challenge Enzi in a 2014 Republican primary. She never mentions Enzi by name in the video.
Enzi said he was not surprised by Cheney’s announcement, noting she had started to travel around Wyoming.
“I’m only surprised in that she said if I ran, she wouldn’t. She announced 30 minutes after I more specifically stated my intention,” he said.
You mean she snookered you, Mike?? You mean she said she was going to do one thing and then did the opposite?? If only you'd gotten a handshake or a "gentlemen's agreement" like they do in the Senate, then you could have been assured of her word. /obvious sarcasm.
Let's all remember that a primary challenge does one very important thing to moderates: it causes them to look over their shoulder when they vote. Enzi will no doubt be voting straight conservative till the primary, just as Orrin Hatch did voting in lockstep with Mike Lee for two years. So Wyoming will have a solidly conservative senator for while.
Until after the primary. What is that? A year? that isn’t good enough. Throw out the rinos.
Mike, maybe you didn't hear her correctly, given your advanced age and all. :)
69 is the “median age” in the Senate? That’s because it has too many mossbacks who are there for decades. The Senate ought to have a limit of three terms. We’d be rid of McCain if that was the rule.
Just posted on another thread that if 69 is the median age then most in the Senate are too damned old.
How about only two terms?
“... which is really trust that you develop.”
This will be interesting to follow. He thinks the people of his state will be impressed that he has developed “trust” in people who run DC. I wonder if the people of Wyoming trust that trust.
I think a pretty good case can be made he is wrong on the people of Wyoming trusting that trust. I wonder if Cheney will make that case.
/johnny
Mike Enzi: “I’m not too old at 69”
Liz Cheney: “I’m not too old to 69”
; )
That’s the one thing that worries me about the primary challenge — that Liz will draw a lot of money into her race that could be spent building up republican challengers in the several states we have a great opportunity to take seats from democrats.
Replacing a 95% conservative with a 100% conservative would be a hollow victory if Reid is left running the senate as a result. It’s not like Enzi is John McCain or Lindsay Graham.
If you have to include the qualifier “too”, you are.
Twp terms is enough Mike. Time for a young gun who really understands what it means to be a republican to take over.
Ronald Reagan was 69 when he was elected to his first term as President. If Enzi is too old then what did that make the Gipper?
Reagan started his political career at 55. He was not a lifer. He served 8 years as governor then took a break and ran for president, lost and took a break and served for eight years. And Reagan was actually a very young 69.
Enzi has been in the senate for 18 straight years now. Don’t know what he did before. So while he’s correct that he’s not too old to serve, he’s too long in the tooth for government. Time to go.
if u check all the senate..(go back as far as you want)....there are only 2 scenarios
1. They were so poor they wanted to secure million dollar job and a feeling of importance
2. They were so rich they wanted a job to give them a feeling of importance despite their wealth
( in other words...it was all about them!..Not a principle amongst any of ‘em!....just keep on feeling good! )
I have a hunch that dumping Enzi for Liz Cheney would be replacing a 95% conservative with a 80% conservative.
I was accepting the “perfect conservative” as a hypothesis for my argument. Until she puts up a web site and starts making promises, we don’t know what her position is on anything.
And other than the marketplace fairness act, I’m not sure what exactly people are complaining about regarding Enzi. I do wonder if people are just so upset at being caught and having to pay the sales tax on what they purchase from out-of-state companies that they are blindly accepting Liz.
I can’t even find definitive proof that she opposes the marketplace fairness act. Disclosure: I think that the concept of the marketplace fairness act is a conservative one, and think opposition to making sure all people pay the taxes they legally owe is a liberal position.
The perfect example where conservatives wasting time on a state they shouldn't have focused on was in 2006. We had three solidly conservative Senators in tough races that year (Allen in VA, Burns in MT, and Talent in MO), all of whom lost their seats to liberal Democrats by less than 1% of the vote. Conservatives took those races for granted and were preoccupied with helping to re-elect socialist Democrat Joe LIEberman over slightly more socialist Democrat Ned Lamont. As a result of conservatives wasting their time/money to help LIEberman, the RATs won the Senate by a 1 seat majority and LIEberman cast the deciding vote to put Reid in power.
Bottom line: A 52-48 GOP controlled Senate with 100% socialist Ned Lamont in Conn. would have been a better scenario than a 51-49 RAT controlled Senate with 95% socialist Joe LIEberman in Conn.
Shame on conservatives for not learning from the past and realizing the no. #1 priority should be on defeating liberals.
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