U.S. Rep. Mike Ross won’t be running for governor in 2014. This decision had been going around and I think Durango reported it pretty reliably in our comments thread over the weekend.
Instead, he’ll be a lobbyist for the Southwest Power Pool, the energy distribution agency based in Little Rock that’s in a huge battle to keep from losing Entergy’s business to another power wheeling agency. Does Ross carry much stick? We’ll see.
It’s all about family, he says in a post on his Facebook page. He’ll still be making a few trips to D.C., I’d guess.
It’s also about the fact that he’d get his butt waxed in a Democratic primary race in 2014, not having been much of a Democrat. Not being a Democrat might have served him well in the general election, but he’d have never reached it. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has some inroads with traditional Democratic constituencies. I still think there’s a strong chance Bill Halter will give it a try. (Indeed hr later issued a statement through a spokesman saying he ‘d consider it.) And there might be others, including Highway Commissioner John Burkhalter who indicated strong interest to me the other day in a chance meeting at the airport. (And I promptly forgot about it.) A horde of Republicans will run, of course.
The Ross statement: