Republican Party Chairman Resigns

The chairman of the national Republican Party announced last Friday that he is resigning his position as party leader. Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida has only held the job for 10 months, but now says that he has accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish and its time for him to concentrate on being a senator.

Martinez says he has put the party back on a sound financial footing and, "It became increasingly apparent things were in sufficiently good shape, and it was probably a good moment to get back to my main job, my real obligation and passion".

This seems to be an odd thing to say, considering the Democrats are outraising the Republicans in donations for the first time in many years. I guess next we'll hear he wants to spend more time with his family.

The problems just keep piling up for the Republican Party, and this resignation won't help. Polls consistently show that Republicans can expect to suffer a huge defeat in the next election. Chances are excellent that after the election, Democrats will control both houses of Congress and the presidency.

I suspect that Martinez could see the coming disaster, and simply didn't want to be in charge of the Republican ship when it sinks. If the election turns out as bad as its looks like it might, they're going to want to blame someone and Martinez doesn't want it to be him.

With their president making a mess of the war and vetoing healthcare for children, not to mention the moral and corruption problems running rampant within the party, it must be hard being a Republican leader these days.