Godspeed Robin Carnahan!

Jake Wagman reports that Robin Carnahan (D-MO) will not seek re-election as Missouri's Secretary of State (SoS) in 2012. Carnahan has done little if any fund raising for the 2012 election so this is not a tremendous surprise. She was elected to the SoS position in 2004 and re-elected in 2008. Her 2008 re-election set a record for the most votes cast for a candidate in an election in Missouri (1,749,152).

In 2010 she was the Democrat nominee to face Roy Blunt (R-MO) for the US Senate seat vacated by Kit Bond (R-MO). She lost by almost a 15% margin. Her vote total in 2010 (785,719) was nearly a million less than what she had received in 2008.

I think state-wide runs in 2008 and 2010 as well as the drubbing at the ballot box sparked a bit of introspection that led to Carnahan's decision to bow out. A third state-wide run in the span of five years was just too much. For the record, I believe, Patrick Tuohey of the Missouri Record was the first to suggest that she wouldn't run in 2012.

I'm always encouraged to see career politicians like Robin Carnahan change jobs. I hope she is successful enough in the private sector that future dalliances with elected office will be unappealing to her.