USA TODAY International Edition
ON POLITICS
Congress was off last week for the Presidents Day holiday, but of course that doesn’t mean they took the week off from politics. Some of last week’s highlights:
WHEN MOVING DOWN IS MOVING UP
Members of Congress announcing their retirement is routine this time of year, but Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D- Calif., still managed to make news of it, announcing in the middle of her first term that she won’t seek re- election. Instead, she said, she plans to run for a seat on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. “My desire to represent this community locally, where I have lived for more than 40 years, and where I have long served as an elected official, won out,” she said in a statement.
Negrete McLeod is the sixth member of the California House delegation to decline a re- election bid in November. Longtime Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and George Miller have both said they will not return, opening the door for Democrats who have been waiting their turn for years. Republicans John Campbell, Gary Miller and Howard “Buck” McKeon are also walking away.
READY FOR A WOMAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE?
Two former Republican presidential candidates split this week over the White House prospects of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann — who briefly starred in the 2012 GOP presidential debates but is not running for re- election in the House — told conservative columnist Cal Thomas that a lot of people “aren’t ready” for a female president, and that she does not sense any “pent- up desire” to send a woman to the White House.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, disagreed. “If the election were tomorrow, Hillary Clinton would most likely be the president of the United States,” McCain said on CNN Thursday night. But he added: “She wouldn’t be my candidate.”
FOXY SCOTT BROWN
Former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown moved to New Hampshire at the beginning of the year and began dropping hints that he might run for Senate there, challenging Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen.
The Boston Globe reported that Brown’s contract as a contributor to Fox News had expired, freeing him for a Senate race, but Fox promptly announced that he had re- upped. That makes it less likely that he would run for office; in 2012, Fox ended contracts of GOP presidential candidates who were serving as commentators.
MAGIC NUMBER
101 Age of Joe Newman of Sarasota, Fla., who is running for Congress against Rep. Vern Buchanan, R- Fla.
WHAT’S NEXT
Congress returns from a weeklong recess and the House will take up legislation to delay increases in homeowners’ flood insurance rates. The Senate will take up several presidential nominations and may begin discussions over a plan to raise the minimum wage.