The reason? He would have to face a primary challenger from the right, and he knew he would lose. Regardless of which of the three men running wins the primary, it will be a notch in the belt for the conservative wing of the party.
I'm sure there are other moderates who decided to hang it up this year for the same reasons.
We knocked off Ralph Hall in Texas. We got a solid conservative into a runoff election for an open congressional seat in Georgia which he now leads. In another open Georgia seat we have two challengers both more conservative than the man who occupied it prior. We got Sasse elected over McConnell’s guy in Nebraska. We sweeped the Texas state level election. Mia Love goes unopposed into the House.
We’re about to take out Thad Cochran and his fatass backer Haley Barbour! That is huge! And lets say we win in Oklahoma with T.W. Shannon, and maybe even with Joe Carr in Tennessee.
Far from a bad year, this looks like a repeat of previous years, where the percentage of conservatives in the Republican delegation only increases.
I once wrote a “letter to the editor” to many Wisconsin newspapers denouncing Petri’s vote for McCain/Feingold as treasonous. He referred to those treason charges later and almost wore it as a badge of honor.