Surprise Senate retirements complicate Democrats' prospects

Democrats knew 2010 would be a difficult year politically, but that reality gained unexpected intensity in the opening days of the New Year.

Surprise retirements by two veteran senators and a first-term governor often lauded as a rising star in the West illustrate the degree to which the party begins this election year on the defensive.

The euphoria that accompanied President Obama's inauguration a year ago has vanished. Democrats could lose their majorities in the House and Senate and become the minority among the nation's governors. Survival is the watchword.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter had different reasons for choosing not to run, but they collectively sent a message that speaks to the nervousness of incumbents in a year in which voter dissatisfaction is palpable. Six Republican senators said last year that they will not seek re-election.

"This is unspinnably bad news for the Democrats, and North Dakota advances to the No. 1 position in our Senate race rankings," said blogger Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com.

Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia, said Dodd's retirement bodes well for Democrats but the Dorgan decision makes matters worse.

"Dodd's withdrawing actually saves the seat for Democrats in all likelihood," Sabato said. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, one of Connecticut's most popular politicians, becomes the front-runner, likely against either former Rep. Rob Simmons or multimillionaire and former World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon.

But Dorgan's seat now is "solid Republican," Sabato predicted, adding that Obama must act fast on his legislative priorities.

"Obama's goal is to push as much of his agenda through as long as he has these margins, because he's never going to have these margins again," Sabato said.

In some Democratic circles, including at the White House, there is hope that the landscape will look less forbidding in the fall. That is based on two assumptions:

First, that the economic outlook will be brighter and that unemployment may be lower than it is today. Second, that people will look more favorably on the passage of health-care legislation than they do today.

But even optimistic Democrats fear that may not be enough. After two big elections, Democrats are due for a setback, and the decisions by Dodd, Dorgan and Ritter speak to that calculus.

For most of his long political career, Dodd enjoyed strong support and token opposition. He has been a major player in several landmark bills, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows workers to take unpaid time off to care for a new baby or a sick relative.

"He has been an extraordinary champion for many causes, but none less than his dedication to children and children's issues," said Jonathan Pelto, a former state Democratic Party chairman who once interned for Dodd.

But his public-approval ratings began slipping when he embarked on a longshot run for president in 2008. His decision to move his family to Iowa, where he was competing in the caucus, annoyed constituents.

His political problems were compounded by reports that he had received a VIP loan from Countrywide Financial, a now-defunct subprime lender.

The Senate Ethics Committee cleared him, but the damage had been done. Questions about the purchase of a cottage in Ireland and his role in the AIG bonus fiasco also hurt him, as did simply being chairman of the Senate Banking Committee while the economy was melting down.

Last year also was a personally challenging one for Dodd, 65, and the father of two young children. His sister died in July, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the man he described as his best friend in the Senate, died of brain cancer in August. Dodd also disclosed that he was treated for prostate cancer.

His yearlong burst of advocacy on many issues, from reforming the financial regulatory system to taking on credit-card companies to overhauling health care, wasn't enough. A poll in November showed more than one-quarter of Democrats had an unfavorable view of him; among unaffiliated voters, his disapproval rating was 60 percent.

Dorgan also has had a long, successful run but could see trouble ahead. One poll found him trailing a potential rival, Republican Gov. John Hoeven, by 22 percentage points. Dorgan also has watched a succession of brutal Senate campaigns in South Dakota, one of which cost former Democratic Leader Tom Daschle his seat, and probably could imagine himself in the same kind of costly, no-holds-barred battle.

Among potential Democrats to replace Dorgan is Heidi Heitkamp, a former state attorney general and tax commissioner. Rep. Earl Pomeroy said Wednesday he's running for re-election to his House seat.

Ritter, according to sources, was persuaded not to run again not only by the political landscape, but because of family issues that he believed would require considerable time and attention.

Democrats take consolation in the fact that Republicans have troubles, too. Were it not for the Dodd-Dorgan-Ritter trifecta, the week might have been remembered for GOP internal wars claiming another victim, this time Florida party chairman Jim Greer.

An ally and confidant of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Greer got caught up in the nasty Senate primary between Crist and former Florida Speaker Marco Rubio, a darling of conservatives who has turned what once looked like an easy warm-up for Crist into a heart-and-soul battle within the GOP.

Florida's GOP primary is, writ large, a replay of what happened in New York's 23rd congressional district last November, when Sarah Palin and other conservatives spurned the Republican nominee in a House special election and sided with the Conservative Party candidate. Democrats won a seat held by the GOP for more than a century.

That contest only fueled the ambitions of the party's conservative, grass-roots activists, who hope to flex their muscles in other races.

Democrats take minimal pleasure in those intraparty GOP wars. If this political year is a referendum on the party in power, Democrats stand to lose more seats, even if the public is not wild about the alternative.

"This is a disaster for the Democratic Party," said Bob Loevy, a political-science professor at Colorado College. "Everyone is perceiving a Republican tide building in 2010, and Democrats are doing the natural thing and getting out of the way."

Compiled from The Washington Post, The Hartford Courant, MarketWatch, The Associated Press and McClatchy Newspapers