Thursday, December 31, 2009

I guess now is the time to speculate about Josh Penry

A very ambitious, young and seemingly promising politician inexplicably drops out of the gubernatorial race. Said politician then decides not to run for re-election to his state Senate seat, a race which he could very easily win and again he does so without any real explanation.

I've heard rumors of a nasty personal scandal involving Josh Penry. The way he dropped out of the gubernatorial primary really seemed odd and played into the scandal narrative. Now he decides not to run for his Senate seat? Something is up, whether the rumors are true or if there is some other unknown crisis waits to be seen but young ambitious pols don't just up and quit like this.

There's no way he's being pushed out of his state Senate seat unless there is a major problem of which the general public is unaware. Penry wouldn't agree to drop out of the gubernatorial primary without securing a guarantee from the party that he would have a clear path to re-election to the state Senate. That seat is very obviously his if we wants it. So why wouldn't he want it? The guy obviously is supremely confident in himself, he's obviously very ambitious and we're to believe that he just all of a sudden is no longer interested in politics? He was running for governor just a few months ago.

This is really, really odd behavior.

1 comment:

Seth Masket said...

It is weird. I suppose he could be thinking McInnis is a shoe-in for governor and there's a nice post waiting for him, but Penry could keep his job in the Senate as insurance anyway, knowing a replacement commission would keep the seat in the family should he go over to the executive branch.

As it is now, if Ritter gets reelected, Penry's got bubkes in 2011. He's awful young to be retired.