Salon.com > Herb Kohl, D-Wis.

Paul Ryan won’t run for U.S. Senate

Tue, 17 May 2011 16:15:00 +0000

House Budget Committee Chairman U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan says he will not run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Herb Kohl.

Ryan said in a statement on his website Tuesday that he feels he can have a bigger impact by remaining in his current position rather than running for the Senate next year.

Ryan's decision not to run may open the door to a bid by former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson. Two Republicans tell The Associated Press that Thompson was considering running with Ryan out of the race. The people requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for Thompson.

Kohl announced on Friday that he would not seek a fifth term next year.

Ryan has represented Wisconsin's 1st congressional district since 1999.

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Associated Press writer Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.

Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl to retire

Fri, 13 May 2011 16:37:00 +0000

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl said Friday he's not running for a fifth term in 2012, a blow to Democrats who now will have to defend another open seat against Republicans in a swing state.

Kohl is the fifth Democratic senator to announce his retirement ahead of the 2012 election.

Republicans will see Kohl's retirement as a clear pickup opportunity. A self-funding millionaire, Kohl also is owner of the Milwaukee Bucks NBA franchise and widely popular in Wisconsin. Any candidate Democrats run is likely to need more financial support from the national party.

Democrats had thought as recently as last week that Kohl would run again.

"I've always believed it's better to leave a job a little too early than a little too late. And that's how I feel today," Kohl said during a Friday news conference in Milwaukee. "The interest and the energy I have for this job will find a new home at the conclusion of this term."

The 76-year-old Kohl was elected to the Senate in 1988 and never has won an election with less than 52 percent of the vote. Born and raised in Milwaukee, he worked as an investor before founding the Kohl's grocery and department stores that earned him a fortune. He also is widely credited with keeping NBA basketball in the relatively small market of Milwaukee.

Harriet Miers talking points: Are there any left?

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 20:20:00 +0000

The White House can't trumpet Harriet Miers' judicial accomplishments -- she doesn't have any -- and its efforts to insert her religious views into the nomination process seem to have backfired. So what's left? Mostly discussion about Miers' character: She's "meticulous" and "detail-oriented," the attorney general said the other day. And the president himself has said that what he likes about Miers is that he knows she'll never change.

So much for those ideas.

The "meticulous" and "detail-oriented" point was always an odd one: The Supreme Court may need many things, but a really top-notch proofreader probably isn't one of them. Whatever. If Miers' main selling point was her careful competence, that idea is pretty much off the table now. Her first responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire were so sloppy that Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy have told her that she'll need to do them over. She left out all sorts of relevant dates; she failed to explain clearly the "issues of law or public policy" on which she has worked for George W. Bush; and the list of prior litigation experience she included omitted cases about which the Judiciary Committee -- without access to her files -- already knew. What's more, she had to fess up that she'd been suspended from the District of Columbia Bar because she forgot to pay her dues.