On the run

The steward told you everything was fine, though he seemed nervous and he was wearing his life preserver. Now the rats are running down the anchor cables, jumping off and swimming for shore.

Just a guess, but figure this boat's after-dinner show is about to be canceled.

In a major blow to Democrats, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey announced Thursday he will not seek re-election, saying he is "ready to turn the page" after a four-decade House career. Until Tuesday, his staff had insisted he was running aggressively.

Rep. Obey, D-Wis., an old-school liberal who was first elected in 1969, faced the toughest re-election fight of his career. "There is a time to stay and a time to go," the 71-year-old Rep. Obey said. "And this is my time to go. ... I haven't done all the big things that I wanted to do when I started out, but I've done all the big things I'm likely to do."

Could Rep. Obey -- an author of the president's counterproductive "economic stimulus" -- be correct? Has the latest tide of big-government socialism crested and turned?

Falsely reading Barack Obama's 2008 election as a "mandate" to enact the far-left agenda of Washington's most far-left senator, Democrats did manage to pass this winter a massive rationing-and-socialized-medicine scheme which no one can afford.

But "global warming" carbon taxes? A European-style "value added tax" on top of skyrocketing income tax rates?

Call any one of them "a bridge too far." And more Democratic incumbents seem reluctant to get stranded on the beach like old whales.

This winter, Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry became the fourth Democratic incumbent to announce his retirement immediately following the "Massachusetts Massacre," in which a Republican did the unthinkable: capturing the late Edward Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat.

Since then, once-powerful Senate Democrats Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota have also cashed in their chips.

"Don't assume David Obey's retirement will be the last one we see from a significant congressional Democrat," speculated the website New Ledger on Thursday. "Democrats on the Hill know that the political winds are blowing against them. Many of them will decide that they would rather run than fight."

In politics, a lot can change in six months. But one thing can't change: You can't win if you're not running.