Senator Bob Corker Retiring In 2018

[Swordsmyth]

Republican Senator Bob Corker on Tuesday announced he will not run for reelection next year, and will retire at the end of 2018 .
“After much thought, consideration and family discussion over the past year, Elizabeth and I have decided that I will leave the United States Senate when my term expires at the end of 2018,” Corker said in an emailed statement.

More at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-26/senator-bob-corker-retiring-2018

[Swordsmyth]

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker (R-Tenn.) has earned accolades as one of the body’s most committed champions of bipartisanship. In his tenure, he has also spearheaded many efforts to reestablish Congress’s authority in diplomatic matters that, over decades, it had ceded to the executive branch.
Grappling with a divided Congress and an ideologically separate White House poses complicated diplomatic challenges, and Corker has tangled with both former president Barack Obama and President Trump over matters as varied as nuclear proliferation, sanctions and the course of foreign wars. Corker has relied on a combination of personal diplomatic skills: acerbic wit, folksy Tennessee drawl, and, sometimes, blunt criticism of politicians who outrank him.
But it is not entirely clear how his heir apparent, Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), who is a more stoically partisan Trump supporter, or his understudy, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been tested on national political stages but is less experienced in the Senate, would approach the job. Risch and Rubio are next in line in terms of seniority on the committee.
Corker said Tuesday that he was staying out of the fight to succeed him — save for placing a quick call to Risch on Tuesday to joke that he must be “the happiest person in the United States,” other than Corker’s family. (And — also jokingly — to tell Risch he could stop thinking about poisoning Corker’s coffee to get the chairman’s gavel.)

More at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/corkers-departure-will-hit-foreign-relations-the-hardest/2017/09/26/b531d9b4-a30d-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html?utm_term=.4a5d2d4974b1

[Swordsmyth]

FloridaSen. Marco Rubio (https://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38&Itemid=828&nameid=R000595) - 74%

IdahoSen. James Risch (https://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38&Itemid=828&nameid=R000584) - 80%

https://www.thenewamerican.com/freedom-index

[Swordsmyth]

TennesseeSen. Bob Corker (https://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=38&Itemid=828&nameid=C001071) - 64%

[euphemia]

It will be the first promise he ever kept. He isn't any kind of liberty lover and panders to special interests.

[goldenequity]

That's ok Bob...
we know where to find you when the 'time comes'. :mad:

[angelatc]

Are the odds good that the GOP will keep the seat?

[euphemia]

There are actually some liberty leaning people in the race. At the same time, the usual establishment Republicans are expecting to run, including our horrible governor, Bill Haslam.

To be quite honest, Republicans have been horrible governors in this state. Lamar (cut their pay and send them home) Alexander was good at the very outset, but tried to fix education in the wrong way. Don Sundquist was a turncoat. Haslam never made a pretense of his corruption. Of all the governors we have had since I moved here, Democrat Phil Bredesen was really good at doing things that states ought to do. Things were left in a wonderful state of organization and readiness. We had a tornado in Murfreesboro a few years back, and five counties had boots on the ground within an hour. I live near the airport in the flight path for LifeFlights. It was an incredible response to a sudden disaster. He was still governor at the time of the Nashville flood, and our local response was incredible.

[Matt Collins]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.... I'd like to think I played a small part in this