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Breaking: Jay Rockefeller to retire in 2014
Hotair ^ | 01/11/2013 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on 01/11/2013 7:50:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind

It didn't take long for the first retirement of the 2014 election cycle to occur. Jay Rockefeller, who has won five Senate elections in West Virginia but seen his state turn deeply conservative, will announce today that 30 years is enough:

Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller will not run for reelection in 2014, passing up a bid for a sixth term and putting in play a Senate seat in deep red West Virginia.

In an interview with POLITICO, Rockefeller — the chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and one of the most senior Senate Democrats — said he had been wrestling with the question of whether to run again since October but had not made up his mind to retire until very recently.

“I’m going to serve out my term,” the 75-year-old Rockefeller said. “It was a very hard decision for me. Once it’s made, like any hard decision, it eases up. But it was a very tough decision for me.”

Rockefeller is scheduled to make a formal announcement at 11 a.m. back home in West Virginia.

Rockefeller said he decided to go public with his retirement now — one that is sure to shake up the 2014 Senate landscape — because it felt like the right move and because he didn’t want months of public speculation over his political future.

Just a few hours earlier, Roll Call wrote a lengthy analysis that explains why Rockefeller decided to retire at the relatively young age of 75 … at least in the Senate:

Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s close ties to President Barack Obama could end his Senate career — should the West Virginia Democrat choose to run for re-election in 2014.

Rockefeller hasn’t had a close race in 30 years. But his strong support for Obama’s agenda in a state where the president remains deeply unpopular, combined with Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito’s decision to run for Senate, could prove enough to undermine the political career of a Democratic icon who has endured even as West Virginia has grown more and more conservative.

“There’s been no doubt on his absolute support of Barack Obama,” West Virginia GOP Chairman Conrad Lucas said, explaining why this race would be different from previous Republican Senate bids.

Rockefeller won his first Senate contest in 1984 with 52 percent of the vote and has won every race since with at least 63 percent. And with a stranglehold on the governor’s mansion and the Legislature, the West Virginia Democratic Party remains more powerful than its Republican counterpart.

But the Mountain State hasn’t voted Democrat for president since 1996, and unlike popular Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, a recent former governor who was first sent to Capitol Hill in 2010, Rockefeller has a long and politically troublesome Washington voting record that Republicans can use against him. He has been a strong supporter of the health care overhaul, to name one major component of Obama’s agenda derided by West Virginians.

It would be different because of the competition, too. Moore Capito has a lot more experience in running for office in West Virginia than previous candidates. She may not be a Tea Party darling — at least not yet — but she has been an effective campaigner in the state. It certainly seems to have provided the impetus to drive Rockefeller into retirement in a state that kept re-electing Robert Byrd even when it became clear he wasn’t up to the task.

This may not be all bad news for the White House, however. They were likely to lose the seat in the midterms, and it’s probably certain now that they will. But this means that Rockefeller doesn’t have to spend the next two years looking over his shoulder and shifting to the right to protect his seat. For the next two years, Rockefeller can vote without any accountability to the more conservative voters in West Virginia. The good news for Republicans won’t come until 2015 at the earliest.


TOPICS: Government; Politics/Elections; US: West Virginia
KEYWORDS: 2014election; elections; jayrockfeller; notbreakingnews; retirement; westvirginia
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To: SeekAndFind

Maybe WV can get it right next time.


41 posted on 01/11/2013 9:52:02 AM PST by crosshairs (They are only assault weapons in the hands of tyrannical governments and criminals. Ban both.)
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To: edcoil

Doesn’t our government give him hundreds of millions a year because he rents his building to the UN?

Rockefeller Clan is nothing more than NWO/UN schills...


42 posted on 01/11/2013 9:55:45 AM PST by GraceG
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To: SeekAndFind; StarFan; Dutchy; alisasny; BobFromNJ; BUNNY2003; Cacique; Clemenza; Coleus; cyborg; ...
Good riddance to this 'RAT turd!

West Virginia GOP: PLEASE give us a decent conservative candidate like Ted Cruz of Texas. Don't run a left-leaning RINO, nor conservative losers like Akin or Mourdock.

43 posted on 01/11/2013 10:12:22 AM PST by nutmeg (FUBO!)
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To: SeekAndFind; StarFan; Dutchy; alisasny; BobFromNJ; BUNNY2003; Cacique; Clemenza; Coleus; cyborg; ...
Good riddance to this 'RAT turd!

West Virginia GOP: PLEASE give us a decent conservative candidate like Ted Cruz of Texas. Don't run a left-leaning RINO, nor conservative losers like Akin or Mourdock.

44 posted on 01/11/2013 10:13:13 AM PST by nutmeg (FUBO!)
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To: SeekAndFind
Why so pessimistic seeing how West Virginia went Romney in 2012?

...and picked up only one state-wide position (AG) even though people were already splitting their ballots.

Now that WV 1 has turned R, Capito might be able to make it interesting, but she doesn't have Raese type money.

45 posted on 01/11/2013 10:52:51 AM PST by Roccus
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To: SeekAndFind

Good to see an elitist step down but unfortunately after a lot of damage was done !


46 posted on 01/11/2013 11:49:39 AM PST by CORedneck
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To: randita

Hasn’t she lost 10 statewide races already? If Republicans couldn’t win a statewide race, even in favorable years. As far as statewide nonpreidential racrs , West Virginia is bluer than California or New York. And 2014 is likely to be a heavily Democratic year.


47 posted on 01/11/2013 3:17:49 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: randita

Hasn’t she lost 10 statewide races already? If Republicans couldn’t win a statewide race, even in favorable years. As far as statewide nonpreidential racrs , West Virginia is bluer than California or New York. And 2014 is likely to be a heavily Democratic year.


48 posted on 01/11/2013 3:17:49 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: Obadiah
R+1

I won't count our seats until the election!! The candidate that we might get could do a Todd Aiken a week before the election.

49 posted on 01/24/2013 9:14:25 AM PST by ExCTCitizen (More Republicans stayed home then the margin of victory of O's Win...)
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To: randita
The two month time frame didn’t give a Republican the chance to declare and get a campaign up and running.

That doesn't explain John Raese's dismal failure to defeat Munchkin in 2012 ...

No, the real problem here is that the WV demonicRats have a well-oiled porkbarrel political machine, and the WV republicans can't campaign their way out of a wet paper bag.

To make matters worse, certain supposedly conservative, supposedly pro-freedom national associations give top ratings and glowing endorsements to disingenuous 'Rats.

50 posted on 01/24/2013 9:29:04 AM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: nickcarraway
Hasn’t she lost 10 statewide races already?

No. Please do some research.

Mizzzzzzz Capito served two terms in the State House of Delegates, and has been a Member of Congress since 2000. She has NEVER lost a statewide election. She has also never participated in a statewide election.

Her record in Congress of voting conservatively on economic and military issues is severely marred by her continued support of the baby-killing industry.

51 posted on 01/24/2013 9:35:38 AM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I am sorry but 30 years for ANYBODY is enough. If Rockefeller is 75 today and were to run in ‘14 and win, he’d be 83 years old at the end of that next term. That is just way too old.

God back to WV, Jay, enjoy what is left of your life, your wife and your family money that bought you the seat in the first place.


52 posted on 01/24/2013 9:42:24 AM PST by EDINVA
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