Jim Moran, Virginia's 8th District Congressman, has decided to retire. He should have been forced out years ago, but the 8th District is extremely liberal and any Democrat could hold the District. The following is a release from retirejimmoran.com.
"Since April 2010, RetireJimMoran.com has been working to expose Jim Moran’s record and hold him accountable. Today, we are pleased to receive word that Jim Moran will retire at the end of his term.
Jim Moran has been embarrassing the 8th District since he took office in 1991. His repeated bombastic and offensive remarks, from blaming the Iraq War on Jews to declaring that a Republican opponent who had served 24 years in the Army was not a public servant, have led to intense criticism from not only the right but the left as well. His antics have been fodder for Washington gossip columns, including an incident with an eight-year-old boy he accused of trying to steal his car, and a time where he verbally assaulted a Catholic priest after Mass.
While we would have preferred a forced retirement of Jim Moran by the voters at the polls later this year, it’s quite clear that Jim Moran realized that he could not get away with his deplorable conduct as a member of Congress anymore. Since RetireJimMoran.com was launched, complete with highly visible yard signs, bumper stickers, ad campaigns, and social media outreach, Moran has become less and less visible to his constituents. He has held only a handful of public meetings after in the last few years after multiple incidents, including one town hall where he scolded a disabled veteran and told him to “sit down or leave” after the veteran asked him a question about how military benefits would be affected by a possible government shutdown in the spring of 2011. Moran has not held a public meeting during the August recess, when members of Congress are supposed to go home and meet with constituents, since 2009. It is clear that Jim Moran realized he did not know how to handle himself and control his temper in the new media age where everyone has a video camera, and as such stopped putting himself before the general public, preferring instead to go to safe environments such as Democratic party events or other closed meetings.
In 2012, Moran was rocked by a scandal in which his son Patrick Moran, who was also a campaign staffer, was recorded advising an undercover activist on how to commit voter fraud. A few weeks later, it was revealed that the same son pleaded guilty to assault after he slammed his girlfriend’s head into a metal trash can outside a D.C. bar. Moran responded by saying his son was a “good kid” and that the incident was “embarrassing” and an “accident”. Moran was condemned by feminists and other groups for trivializing the incident and perpetuating the cycle of violence through his statements on the matter. At the time, RetireJimMoran.com said, “Jim Moran really needs to consider whether his time in Congress is worthwhile anymore – his behavior in the public spotlight has not only affected him personally but his wives and children too,” and called on him to resign.
It has been a sharp decline in the career of a politician who has ten times been re-elected by comfortable margins.
RetireJimMoran.com will continue to hold Jim Moran accountable through the end of his term, and for as long as he remains in the public eye."
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