“Democratic” Senator Ben Nelson to Retire

Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson will reportedly announce soon that he is retiring in 2012 and it’s hard for me to shed any tears. Yes, this may reduce the Democrats odds of retaining power in the Senate, but didn’t he already do this before, by pulling them to the right? He voted for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, against the judicial confirmation of Elena Kagan (but in favor of Samuel Alito), for restricting individual rights to bankruptcy, against Cash For Clunkers, for disastrous trade agreements such as CAFTA. He helped delay what health reform we got, and was part of preventing the public option. We saw what happened when the Democrats had a larger majority in the Senate, and it wasn’t more progressive policy, just more of an opportunity for conservative Democrats such as Ben Nelson to call the shots.