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Related: About this forumPic Of The Moment: In One Sentence, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) Sums Up Opposition To Keystone XL
Harkin On Keystone: Let's Stop 'Digging The Graves Of Our Grandchildren'
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sinkingfeeling
(51,276 posts)stone space
(6,498 posts)I don't look forward to having King as my representative and Ernst as my senator.
Good job, Senator Harkin!
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,297 posts)geardaddy
(24,924 posts)caber09
(666 posts)Thanks for retiring Tom, had you not retired 1) you wouldve won easily again and saved one seat 2) you couldve continued to be this passionate in helping Dems out on the issues 3) We wouldnt have a crazy person succeed you as Iowa Senator.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)80, 86, please let us know.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... instead of all of the corporate Democrats that the likes of Rahm Emanuel and his followers and DCCC have promoted over real progressives for House seats over the years.
Tom Harkin is one of the old guard, who like any other human being at some point won't be able to continue on in office. I don't fault him for retiring. Everyone has to have that choice to make in their life to make those changes where and when they feel it best for them. But if we had a lot of younger progressives in office now, we wouldn't have had a Joni Ernst taking his spot, and would have had a decent progressive to take his place, as it should be.
I really feel bad, especially when I remember voting for him many years back when I was still an Iowa resident. I'd really hoped that Grassley would have left office before he did, and that we'd have two decent progressive senators from that state instead of what they have now. It's sad, and sad for many friends I still know that live there now.
MADem
(135,425 posts)decision, and that would have been a better outcome, that's all the poster is saying.
There's a difference (subtle, but present) between a LAMENT and an actual criticism.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)modestybl
(458 posts)... and now we have the psychopath Joni Ernst.... thanks for that...
panfluteman
(2,054 posts)Maybe he wanted to spend more time with his grandchildren...
TheCowsCameHome
(40,161 posts)WTF - who wants to work until they die, except conservatives?
Not this kid.............
calimary
(80,693 posts)Thanks for nothing! Because now we've got NOTHING. We could have used your voice for one more term, Tom. Six years' worth - that would put your replacement's election in another presidential year - when Dems do better.
FUCK! WHY does no one think about this???? If you have a chance to hang on til the next presidential election cycle, and Dems usually have less of a turn-out during the midterms, WHY RISK IT DURING THE MIDTERMS?????? Doesn't anybody think about this, among the powers that be? I wish Harkin had hung around just for one more term. He seems to be doing more to make sure his grandchildren are screwed.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)what. Maybe he wants to "spend time with his grandchildren" while his mental faculties are still intact.
billhicks76
(5,082 posts)Let the man leave. He sees all the hypocrisy on our side riveling Rethugs. Hillary may as well marry into the Bush family. Tom is ok and always has been a fine man which apparently gets no respect. Sure you just chose your words poorly but this man is a hero.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)Yes, he's a great Democrat, but he's also as mortal as any of us.
billhicks76
(5,082 posts)He is fine. Just doing what's right.
calguy
(5,222 posts)Until you are 81 years old???
I didn't think so. Me neither.
Thanks for over 30 years of service Tom.
modestybl
(458 posts)...hell yes I would. They were wheeling old Strom Thurmond's carcass in for votes when he was 100. Why can't our side show that kind of commitment...
calimary
(80,693 posts)Even while taking care of small children at home. I never stopped working. I kept a hand in it even while not having the conventional Monday-through-Friday go-into-the-newsroom-every-day work schedule. I never just quit, took my ball, and went home. And after the kids grew up, and at least my daughter didn't need me so intensely anymore, I was still working. My career really just wound up taking a different turn. It got redefined and reoriented, and I turned out to be busier than ever, just based at home. And yes, doing broadcast news and talk shows - AND MORE. I may be "retired" but I'm not just sitting around all day kicking back and watching TV!
Actually, I have another 24/7 job right this minute, managing my son's band. It's as carnivorous a job as any of the jobs I ever had in radio or TV news. As far as this particular work I'm now doing (political activism), I expect to be at it til I drop over dead. Age 81, or as long as I can still write and scold and strategize. I feel as though - in a teeny weeny, minuscule, and utterly microscopic way - that I serve, and my country and my party come first. I include the words "my party" in there because I still firmly believe, in this two-party system we have, it's MY party that can best help conceive, design, and implement policy that builds and furthers our country and everyone in it - not ONLY the 1%. I think that's a cause worth fighting for until they carry me outta here. Besides.......... I know that's what the enemy does NOT want. They WANT us all to get old and tired and fed up and stop fighting and go away. They WANT us to give up. And knowing that in my bones, I just flatly refuse.
Not trying to build myself up here, calguy, or get in-yer-face or anything, but you did point that question to me directly, so I feel obliged to answer, simply based on what I know and what I'm doing and trying to do, and what share of civic and social responsibility there is to be taken - by little mostly-insignificant ornery ol' me.
modestybl
(458 posts)...just announce in 2015 that he needed to retire in 2016...
calimary
(80,693 posts)Glad you're both here! modestybl, that is the perfect solution in a case where some Dem does want to step down and it might not be the wisest time, strategically, to do so. Heck, MY outgoing Congressman, Henry Waxman, chose this election cycle to pack it in, too, after 30 years. I thought that was a little reckless, also. Why couldn't he wait just another two years, to make SURE that he'd be replaced by another DEMOCRAT - when Dems traditionally can be counted on to come out in droves to vote because it's a presidential election cycle? Maybe think just a wee bit more strategically, and put Country and also party first, for one last time??? As it happened, and much to my relief, he was indeed replaced by Democrat Ted Lieu, who's pretty good but not yet as muscular on offense as I'd like and hope to see.
But what started to make the alarm bells go off for me here in SoCal was watching helplessly as Ted Lieu's opponent almost carpet bombed the local airwaves with a series of spots - one building him way way way way up in the appeal department, and then in the last two weeks going hugely negative against Ted Lieu. His ads versus Ted Lieu's ads were running at a rate of at least 5 or even 10-1. They were pretty shrewdly crafted, too, with a female voiceover (a very subtle and subliminal shout-out to women voters). He had a shitload of money behind him. Money was pouring into the campaign for our bright blue district, hoping to turn it red. Money from who-knows-where. SOMEBODY on the enemy side thought this might be a competitive district at long last, and ripe for the picking, and thought it worth the time and money and effort to try to take it away from us. I've lived in this district for more than 50 years. I've never seen that kind of frontal assault from the bad guys before. Evidently SOMEBODY on that side thought it was time to come after us, ESPECIALLY when there's no longer any "power-of-incumbent" dynamic in play and that THIS time presented that rare opportunity. CA-33 is a bright blue district. But SOMEBODY in the enemy camp CLEARLY calculated that, THIS time, it might be just vulnerable enough to be worth putting up a fight here.
I've long suspected that they're plotting busily and with increasing focus and energy to try turn California red again. They want us back. BADLY. California is a real plum. We're a HUGE haul of winner-take-all electoral votes - 55 big ones. You win California and you've got a TREMENDOUS leg up with all those electoral votes. Ours is the biggest motherlode in the country. And I've seen the Democratic Party in general really behaving in such a way as to take us for granted. They don't campaign out here much, except to raise funds to go campaign in earnest somewhere else. They've taken us for granted for a long time. And I guarantee you - SOMEBODY on the other side is taking note.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)Anyone wanna hazard a guess as to how Harkin's replacement might edit that statement???
Martin Eden
(12,802 posts)lunasun
(21,646 posts)Period.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)Hate to see him go,understand why,one can only handle so much shit and just say I'am to old for this and move on.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)And serious kick
47of74
(18,470 posts)I am STILL thinking of moving out of Iowa because of this.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Iwillnevergiveup
(9,298 posts)Who knows why he decided not to run, but Iowans are about to experience buyer's remorse.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)hopemountain
(3,919 posts)i could just kiss him! muah!
red dog 1
(27,647 posts)I too will miss Tom Harkin; and I wish he & the other Senate Dems who retired would have stayed on just a couple of years longer, until after the 2016 election, then they could have retired..
(Just one Dem's opinion)
Too bad this one's being replaced by a Republican nutcase.
4dsc
(5,787 posts)Too little too late IMHO.
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)Old Nick
(468 posts)billhicks76
(5,082 posts)A lot of religious whackadoodles who conveniently forgot what Christians are supposed to stand for yes. And sprinkle in the occultist peds who kidnapped Johnny Gosch but decent people overall. I used to deliver the Des Moines Register and wish I knew then it was poisonous at the top...or maybe not. Good luck to Tom...he served the people valiantly.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)All equal losses for people with liberal ideals and the desire to salvage a little of what remains today for tomorrow.
Those dollars fund our opponents and those who would don our vestiges to garner our votes only to abandon them. Some do all they can to ensure our enemies have a full war chest and some do all they can to ensure open democracy.
Arkana
(24,347 posts)we'll have a hog-castrating moron in his seat whose only stated qualification for the Senate was that she was a mother.