Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Nice Try: Can a politician be any more obviously opportunistic than Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney? He's calling for John Kerry to resign from the Senate, arguing that Kerry is being distracted from his senatorial duties with his presidential bid.

Of course, Gov. Romney is a Republican and would be able to appoint a Republican as the replacement senator.

This seems to be a common theme that never works. When George W. Bush was running for re-election as governor of Texas in 1998, his opponent kept talking about the rumors of Dubya's presidential bid and argued that the state shouldn't have a part-time governor. I think Texans liked the idea of their governor running for president, and that may be partly why Bush was re-elected with 70 percent of the vote.

With Kerry as the Democratic presidential nominee, he's probably the most powerful senator in the minority party. It would be crazy for Massachusetts to give up such an asset, even if Kerry isn't in the Senate chambers everyday to vote. He'll be there when the votes count. In the mean time, he'll be a lot more influential than he normally would be.