Why Did Judd Gregg Decide He Didn Want To Be Commerce Secretary?
Actually, as Byron York points out, the real question is why he accepted the job. After 16 years as a Republican senator from New Hampshire, Judd Gregg has a lot of friends among GOP lawmakers, and in the past two weeks, many of them — perhaps most of them — have been wondering why he chose to accept Barack Obama’s offer to become Commerce Secretary. Their objections intensified in the last week, as Republicans grew more worried about the Obama administration’s plan to move control of the politically-sensitive 2010 Census from the Commerce Department to the White House. For Gregg himself, concerns about having the Census taken away from Commerce dovetailed with more general fears that a Democratic White House would restrict his freedom to run the Department. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, Gregg formally withdrew. “I think he had buyer’s remorse,” one GOP senator told me. “After he looked into it more, he said, ‘Whoa, this was a mistake.'” And Senator Gregg figured that out with, per
