Sen. Lamar Alexander will not run for reelection

[brooklynite]

Source: Politico

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) will not run for another term in the Senate, a decision that represents a body blow to the institution and comes as a surprise to many of his colleagues on Capitol Hill.

A former governor, Cabinet member, presidential candidate and now the chairman of the influential Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Alexander decided to call it quits after three terms despite polls showing him in strong position in 2020. He’d be running in a conservative state and on the same ballot as President Donald Trump.

"The people of Tennessee have been very generous, electing me to serve more combined years as governor and senator than anyone else from our state. I am deeply grateful, but now it is time for someone else to have that privilege," the 78-year old Alexander said on Monday. "I have gotten up every day thinking that I could help make our state and country a little better, and gone to bed most nights thinking that I have. I will continue to serve with that same spirit during the remaining two years of my term.”

Alexander is widely respected by Democrats and Republicans, the rare senator who is close to both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. With his retirement, the Senate will lose a key negotiating conduit during times of crisis.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/17/sen-lamar-alexander-will-not-run-for-reelection-1067254

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Target number one...

[Guppy]

1. Lamar!

what a slogan

[nycbos]

19. Any relation to Headley Lamarr?

[TeamPooka]

2. Fuck that guy. What has he done to stand up to trump and defend his old school GOP principles? Zero.

Fuck that guy again.

[cstanleytech]

4. Exactly, all of the Senate and House Repugnants have essentially done nothing but lick his boots.

[dalton99a]

7. +1

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I saw a WaPo breaking on this. Maybe Bresden will give it another shot. nt

[brooklynite]

5. I cut off Bredesen when he came out in support of Kavanaugh.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Yeah that was idiotic.

[redstateblues]

31. Not really

[BumRushDaShow]

32. I think a misinterpretation of what I meant for what I posted.

Am actually agreeing with brooklynite!

[TNNurse]

21. So you helped elect Blackburn????

[brooklynite]

23. No, I helped elect other Democrats in his place

It's impossible to support EVERY candidate, so I focused by resources on those that didn't hit a dealbreaker issue.

[redstateblues]

28. The Kavanaugh thing is not why he lost. My TN, unfortunately, is a very backward state

Bredesen is a good man

[BumRushDaShow]

33. I think it may have inadvertantly suppressed some voters though.

Cities like Memphis really need to come out to get someone like Bresden over the top nowadays in this unfortunately discordant period in history.

[Dopers_Greed]

6. Why?

He lost by a significant margin this year.

I'd love to see him in the Senate, but I don't see him doing 10+% better next time.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. I think the Kavanaugh thing was a death knell

Hate to not have someone else available (other than the equally cagey Harold Ford).

[Polybius]

34. If he came out and opposed Kavanaugh, he would have lost by 20

TN is bright Red.

[BumRushDaShow]

36. He could have decided not to address it at all

There are cities in TN that are blue and much of the rest of the state is rural.

Comparatively, when you look at a map of PA and its voting patterns, it makes it look like PA is "deep red" but that is complete bullshit because there are a number of the geographically largest (by land area) counties here that have less than 10,000 people living in them (more moose than people) and a congressional district there ends up with 14 - 15 counties grouped together to reach the threshold for a single congressional seat. That is versus a mere portion of one city like mine (Philly, which is also its own county) to equal the same number of people for a congressional seat.

Both Memphis and Nashville have populations that together represent 20% of the state's entire population and both have Democratic congressmen.

(and as a sidenote, I have deep roots in that state with a direct family line that goes back to the 1800s in Chattanooga)

[Polybius]

37. The PA comparison isn't really fair

It looks Red, but there are huge Democratic cities. It votes Blue many times, for Senate, President, etc. TN not only looks Red, it is Bright Red when it counts, voting. Even Memphis and Nashville are nowhere's near as Blue as Philly.

[BumRushDaShow]

38. If I'm not mistaken, he was a 2-term Democratic governor

And if I'm also not mistaken, a certain famous Democratic VP, who had his election stolen, came from there after serving as a Democratic Senator.

I'm not saying that states don't shift as people move around but the potential is there! The last time I was there I remember coming in on a Sunday and scanning for a news radio station and landed on one that had a station logo that said something like "coming from the buckle of the Bible Belt...". So yeah, they have a "culture" that needs to be understood but I wouldn't consider them like an Oklahoma.

[Polybius]

39. Phil Bredesen last won statewide office a dozen years ago, and was very moderate

And with all due respect, Al Gore is a bad example. He last won election as a TN Senator in 1990. Yes, the 2000 election might have been stolen, but TN wasn't. Gore lost his own state by 51.15 to 47.28. If he had won TN, he would have won the presidency without FL. Had the election been in 2018, it would have been 60-40.

Times have changed, if you go back to the 60's, every Southern winner was a Democrat. These days though, I see no potential at all in TN anytime soon. If I'm wrong in 2020, I will be the first one to apologize.

[BumRushDaShow]

40. At one point

people wrote off states like VA, CO, NV, NC and yes, even FL. Yet all were within a margin enough to take them over a hump in a Presidential election. The point being that you need to keep at it. 50-state strategy! Otherwise you broadcast to Democrats who do exist in these states, that they are not worth your time and you inevitably help to suppress their turnout.

If anything, what is also "changing" is a move of some Republicans towards being "unaffiliated"/"independents" and it is a battle to capture that group and get your own group to make the effort to turn out (which they often will if they feel they are being embraced).

The historic midterms established that - despite the massive gerrymandering that is still in place around the country, and if we can solidify control or at least enhance our presence in elected offices at the state level (knocking out supermajorities in more red states), then we can have a say in the upcoming redistricting, which will impact the elections over the decade following the 2020 census.

[redstateblues]

29. Sadly there is no Democrat that could win a statewide election at the present

[redstateblues]

30. Megan Barry would have been one.

[RhodeIslandOne]

13. Nope.

If he couldn't beat a wingnut like Marcia Blackburn, his time has passed.

[pecosbob]

10. How many seats do they have to defend in 2020?

ruh roh...

[Jim Lane]

12. They defend only two seats in states Hillary won (Maine and Colorado).

So, even though they defend many more seats than we do, it's not a mirror image of 2018, when ten Democrats were up in red states.

Tennessee is an example. They'll have to defend an open seat, but is it a good pickup opportunity? In 2018 we had an open seat, a blue wave, and the candidate widely thought to be the strongest available, and he lost by 11 points. I can't be optimistic.

I don't know the players there, but quite possibly the best we can hope for is a fractious Republican primary that will drain off some donor money that otherwise would have gone to genuine battleground states.

[StevieM]

14. But we have a good chance of picking up seats in North Carolina, Arizona, and possibly Iowa.

I think we could have another blue wave in 2020. Or at least I am praying that we will have one.

[Jim Lane]

16. I know there are some additional chances.

This year we had only one chance to flip a seat in a state Hillary won (Nevada), and we did it, and also got Arizona, which Trump had won. So, yes, states like those you mention are possibilities. Overall, though, it's just not nearly as promising a map for us as 2018 was for the GOP.

Also bear in mind that we'll have to defend Alabama. The Republicans probably won't run another pedophile, so that seat is a likely blue-to-red flip.

[StevieM]

17. We would have won Arizona, along with the election, had it not been for the Comey intervention.

He turned that election upside down at the end.

[d_r]

26. There us no telling

What kind of right wing freaking idiot we will get new in Tennessee.

[Funtatlaguy]

11. Dems should run Taylor Swift.

[vlyons]

15. Why is this a "body blow" to the senate?

That's not my perspective. More like some opened the window for a breath of fresh air.

[Harker]

25. Yes... odd phrase to use.

I much prefer your perspective.

[turbinetree]

18. Lamar Alexander.......................go fuck your self and bark at the moon...................

https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/repealing-obamacare


Now this POS will get a retirement and health care paid for by the tax payers and he will not be able to vote for his Federalist Society assholes buddies..........................................


November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough.................

[riversedge]

20. bye bye. so long.

[TNNurse]

22. He can now retire to his home in a gated community

next to the Smoky Mountains and make more money.

[BluegrassDem]

24. The only chance for Dems is a celebrity candidate like Tim McGraw

Who had expressed interested in running for governor some years ago. Now he could actually pull it off!

[JackRiddler]

27. A real body blow!

How will the Republic ever recover from the loss of such a pioneer... who now that I used that word, come to think of it, probably was around for the settlement of Tennessee, based on how long we have been subjected to the presence of his irrelevance.

[Polybius]

35. Target number 1?

Do you realize just how Red TN is? We'll probably get someone worse.