Via The Hill:
Amidst growing speculation he might retire, Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) office declined to rule it out on Wednesday.
Spokeswoman Michelle Begnoche said the congressman is evaluating his options, but that he's ready to run again if he decides to.
Why would someone who had risen to such spectacular national prominence just recently already be considering retirement? Well, there's this:
First Read reported Wednesday morning that Democratic strategists are urging Stupak to stick around, because his seat would be difficult for the party to hold. That task was made tougher, it said, because of the what Stupak went through when he held out for abortion language in the healthcare bill. In an interview with The Hill, Stupak described it as a "living hell."
The nine-term congressman became a target of the left after he held out on voting for the healthcare bill until he had a guarantee of tougher language to prevent any federal subsidies from being used for abortion services.
Now, that's interesting. I would have thought that the flak that Stupak took from the right AFTER the health insurance reform law passed might have been mentioned as well...you know, things like being called a motherf---er, or a big piece of human s--t, or being threatened with death. But no, it's the left that has made Stupak's life a living hell, according to the Hill.
I'll let Digby take it from here:
So we're the ones who are making poor Bart's life "a living hell" even though his friends in the "pro-life" movement are the ones issuing death threats. And Democratic strategists are giving him sympathy for all the "hell" he went through and begging him to stay on. Good to know.
The Democrats are going to lose seats this fall, no matter what. So they might as well send a little message to their members that there's a price to pay for trying to destroy the party's signature legislation and the president's legacy at the expense of the majority of the party. Letting Stupak twist in the wind would be one way to do that. Instead, they appear to be rewarding him."
Yeah, what Digby said. The bottom line isn't just that Stupak is wrong on choice--he's also politically inept. What did he think was going to happen when he pissed off the progressive left by holding out against healthcare for the forced birth movement, and then pissed off the teabaggers and the forced-birthers by defending and voting for the bill?