It’s just a ‘desire to move on,’ Martinez says

First Mel Martinez said in December that he wouldn’t run for a second term as the only Republican Hispanic in the U.S. Senate.

Then, in what Democrats are sneeringly referring to as a mini-trend in GOP politics, Martinez announced Friday that he’s quitting two years before the end of his first term.

Now the question is, what will Charlie do?

Mel Martinez

Florida’s Martinez made his unexplained announcement the day before Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the first Hispanic justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, an achievement widely hailed as the American Dream incarnate. Breaking with the majority of his party, Martinez voted in favor of her nomination by President Barack Obama.

Then, without specifying any future plans, Martinez said he – like Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin – is quitting well before the end of his first term.

“There’s no impending reason, it’s just my desire to move on,” he said. “When I began my term as senator, I promised I wouldn’t simply warm a seat,” begging the question of just what he’s been doing to earn his Senate paycheck.

Late last month, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the Texas Republican, told POLITICO that she’s quitting sometime this fall to campaign for governor of her state.

But Charlie Crist’s political aspirations run in the opposite direction. As Florida’s Republican governor, he’s now in the position of naming a replacement for Martinez while pursuing the Senate seat himself. Though he probably won’t appoint himself, according to POLITICO’s unnamed Republican sources, the situation puts Crist in the position of replacing the seat-warmer with a placeholder who won’t challenge him for the GOP nomination in 2010. Crist said he’ll name his choice before the Senate returns from summer recess in September.

While the Republican shuffle continues, without an apparent cohesive plan to prevent a further shift in the congressional balance of power to the Democratic side of the aisle, the Dems are sitting back and sniping from the sidelines.

As Democratic political operative Eric Shultz put it, “Republicans seem to have a problem fulfilling their oaths of office.”

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