Last year, I said Max Baucus must be the luckiest son of a bitch in 2008 because his Republican opponent wasn’t really a Republican, and was not even endorsed by the state GOP (Baucus ended up getting 73% of the vote, the highest in his 30 year career).
This year, with reelection successfully behind him for another 6 years, Baucus is again the luckiest man in Congress. He’s not only gotten increased clout as Finance Committee Chairman, but now he’s managed to muscle in on enough consideration for an alternative to the public option for health care reform, one that doesn’t include the public option in the health care marketplace that currently exists.
I’m not going to make this a discussion about health care (again). I’m only using this as a base for an argument about what to do with the senior senator from Montana, and that includes both whether he should be replaced as Chairman or primaried out of office in 2014.
I will admit this: Max Baucus has been extremely successful in getting reelected as a Democrat in a traditionally Red State, but this is perhaps due to a combination of sheer luck and weak opponents. Also, the Democratic Party in Montana didn’t have much of a strong slate of candidates either for the last decade or so. But by 2014, can we honestly say after all the success the party has had in the Treasure State, with Brian Schweitzer, Jon Tester and a breakout 2008, that the Democrats cannot find another suitable candidate to replace Max Baucus? Brian Schweitzer should be available by 2013 (if Obama hasn’t selected him to be his running mate, at least…).
For that matter, why hasn’t anyone tried to replace him as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee? Here’s a link of the members of the said committee. My person choice would be Jay Rockefeller.
So I’ll just end my ridiculously long chat with these questions:
Who should replace Max Baucus as Senator in 2014?
Who should replace him as Finance Committee Chairman?
And finally…
How is it the Senate of the United States, a country with over 300 million people, can leave fiscal policy matters to a guy who only represents at least 1% of the population?
Baucus probably won’t run agian in 2014, and Jay Rockefeller will take over as Finance chair.
After him is Conrad.
Unless they change the seniority rule.
Well we would have to hope Schweitzer runs I guess.
He won when it was nearly impossible for a Democrat to win in Montana, but the political leanings of the state have changed out from beneath him. You don’t have to be an apologetic Democrat like Evan Bayh in Indiana to win over Montanans anymore. Granted, Montana is not liberal, but the point being Baucus should be primaried in 2014 if he does run again. I support centrists from truly red areas, which is why I’ve been kinder to Ben Nelson than most Dems, but when a state or district can produce an ideologically more progressive representative than I’m all for primaries. Baucus, along with Lieberman, need to go for this reason alone.