Ney Drops Re-election Bid

Well, if you've been reading this blog, you know that this is not a surprise. Congressman Bob Ney has read the handwriting on the wall, and dropped his bid for re-election. His re-election chances seemed awfully slim, and he has opted to step aside to allow a new primary.

As we saw in the DeLay case, that proved more problematic than expected. One wonders if Ney has looked closely to make sure he can drop off the ballot, as DeLay has proved unable to do. Additionally, rumors have Republicans trying to replace Senate candidates in Florida and Connecticut. While it's unlikely that either of those will happen - let alone both - it will be interesting to see if there is any public relations impact of trying to replace several candidates - or being seen to - so late in the campaign.

Apart from that, the only likely effect of Ney's dropping out will be to remove a seat from the Democratic target list. This seat seems completely safe for the GOP with most candidates, and Democrats will likely focus their resources on other races once a new candidate has been selected.

Update: Philo beat me to the post, and probably has more obscure and interesting facts about Ney.

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