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With Sen. Dan Coats' Retirement, One More Gone From The Old School
npr.org ^ | 3/25/15 | Ron Elving

Posted on 03/26/2015 5:49:37 AM PDT by cotton1706

Senate Republican Dan Coats of Indiana announced Tuesday — probably surprising no one — that he would not seek another term in 2016. Although he has been a stalwart Republican through a turbulent generation in Washington, Coats seems less at home in the hyper-partisan world of Congress today.

While Coats, 71, said his decision was strictly personal and age-related, he did refer to the "terribly dysfunctional Senate" in an interview with the Howey Politics Indiana newsletter.

Coats has had two tours of duty in the Senate, one from 1989 through 1998 and a second beginning with the Tea Party election of 2010. In the 1990s he was seen as a solid and reliable conservative who could occasionally cross the Senate aisle on a given issue. That was an approach to the Senate favored by many at that time.

Sen. Dan Coats, right, talks with Sen. John S. McCain prior to testifying before a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 1995.

In 1992, for example, Congress was weighing what would become the Family and Medical Leave Act. Coats, a longtime anti-abortion champion, was convinced that granting more time off to new parents would reduce the number of abortions. So he, like his anti-abortion colleague Henry Hyde in the House, embraced the family leave bill. He cast a crucial vote for it in committee and stuck with it through two presidential vetoes and a firestorm of criticism from business lobbies and social conservatives alike.

(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Politics/Elections; US: Indiana
KEYWORDS: elections

1 posted on 03/26/2015 5:49:37 AM PDT by cotton1706
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To: cotton1706

What a sham of an article. Not one mention of democraps irons fisted partisan behavior under Harry Reid.


2 posted on 03/26/2015 6:01:28 AM PDT by KC_Conspirator
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To: cotton1706

He should never have come back in 2010. His cowardice in refusing to face Evan Bayh in 1998 should not have been rewarded with a return to the Senate.


3 posted on 03/26/2015 6:02:02 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: KC_Conspirator

That’s because they expect that from their Stalinist Democrat friends... advancing the radical, anti-American agenda against the GOP.


4 posted on 03/26/2015 6:03:00 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: KC_Conspirator

Only one way to make the senate function. Take 60 seats and be done with it.


5 posted on 03/26/2015 6:03:45 AM PDT by refermech
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To: fieldmarshaldj

The story says he was honoring his term limit pledge but I don’t buy it. He didn’t want to face Bayh and then when Bayh retired he was like “hey guys! Can I please come back!”

And of course, McConnell and his cronies were eager to prevent another Tea Party win that year so they welcomed an “old school” go-along type.


6 posted on 03/26/2015 6:06:12 AM PDT by cotton1706 (ThisRepublic.net)
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To: cotton1706

60s relics regardless of party have squandered postwar prosperity and borrowed trillions upon trillions with no chance of repayment.

They’ve undermined the culture, celebrated and coddled the perverse and weakened a superpower, ensuring chaos around the world long after they have expired.


7 posted on 03/26/2015 6:06:21 AM PDT by relictele (Principiis obsta & Finem respice - Resist The Beginnings & Consider The Ends)
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To: cotton1706

Term Limits in Congress - now!


8 posted on 03/26/2015 6:11:16 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: refermech

>> Only one way to make the senate function. Take 60 seats and be done with it.

The Pubbies could have 99 seats in the Senate, but if McConnell is the leader, he’d still surrender to the commie.


9 posted on 03/26/2015 6:22:51 AM PDT by vikingd00d (nulla seruitus turpior est quam uoluntaria -- Seneca)
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To: BenLurkin
Term Limits in Congress - now!

Your mileage may vary. NYC term limits led to de Blasio the Commie replacing Bloomberg, who was sanctimonious and overbearing, but a pretty good mayor otherwise. NYC's City Council is now a hive of radical de Blasio clones.

10 posted on 03/26/2015 6:24:31 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: cotton1706

Mike Pence???


11 posted on 03/26/2015 6:32:00 AM PDT by hoosiermama (Obama: "Born in Kenya" Lying now or then or now?)
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To: cotton1706

The worst thing to happen to the USA was the ‘60s culture. The “Greatest Generation” was the weakest generation at parenting. Their pernicious legacy lives on in our educational system, where many of the anti-American leaders wound up, converting the next generation into Leftists who hate our founding principles. Exhibit A: the Occupy brats.


12 posted on 03/26/2015 6:32:08 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: fieldmarshaldj

His return was engineered by the RNC to block a conservative from that seat. The GOP does not want conservative Senators.


13 posted on 03/26/2015 6:49:13 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Lurkinanloomin

It was supposed to go to Marlin Stutzman, who went to the House the same year instead. Now is the time for him to make an unapologetic run for it.


14 posted on 03/26/2015 6:54:45 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: hoosiermama

No. He’s running for a second term as Governor.


15 posted on 03/26/2015 6:55:20 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: relictele

“60s relics regardless of party have squandered postwar prosperity and borrowed trillions upon trillions with no chance of repayment. They’ve undermined the culture, celebrated and coddled the perverse and weakened a superpower, ensuring chaos around the world long after they have expired.”

A spot-on and succinct analysis.


16 posted on 03/26/2015 7:23:14 AM PDT by SharpRightTurn (White, black, and red all over--America's affirmative action, metrosexual president.)
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To: Zhang Fei
Term Limits in Congress - now!

They'll never give it up. Hell, McCain and Cochran are going to need walkers and day nurses this term but they will not let go of that power.

17 posted on 03/26/2015 7:27:29 AM PDT by Kenny (,)
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