Twenty To Fifteen

Democrat Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts is not running for re-election, making 20 Republicans and now 15 Democrats bowing out this year.

Representative William Delahunt will not seek re-election to Congress, the seven-term Democrat will announce tomorrow, ending a nearly 40-year career in elected office and giving Republicans hope of capturing the seat, which stretches from Cape Cod to the South Shore.

"It's got nothing to do with politics," the Quincy Democrat said today. "Life is about change. I think it's healthy. It's time."

The 68-year-old lawmaker said he has been considering leaving the House for several years, but was talked out of it two years ago by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who convinced his friend he should stay and help President Obama with his first-term agenda.

"He said, 'Come on -- this is a new time. It's a new era. We [will] have a new president. We're all needed," Delahunt recalled Kennedy telling him. Once Kennedy died last year, Delahunt said he grappled with whether to stay and work on the issues Kennedy held dear.

"Clearly, since his death, there's something missing. There's a void. With the void, you feel the need to be here because there's much to do," Delahunt said wistfully in an exclusive interview.

But the congressman said he concluded that after nearly four decades in public service, the grueling House schedule was taking its toll on his personal life.

"I've got a granddaughter," the divorced father of two said. "Given the pace down here, I don't want to miss out on her childhood, her first year."

The congressman has faced recent questions about the handling of the 1986 Amy Bishop shooting case, which occurred when he was Norfolk County district attorney. Delahunt has said consistently that his office was not told that Bishop fled with a loaded weapon after killing her brother in what police then called an accident.

But the case has absolutely nothing to do with his decision to retire, Delahunt said. Several of the congressman's friends and associates confirmed that the lawmaker has been mulling his departure for years, and very seriously considering it for many months.

Well, now he's out.  I'm fairly sure more will be coming in March, but will they be Republicans fleeing the teabaggers or Dems fleeing progressives?