Senate ‘Team’ to Run Again
West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, stressing experience, announced today he will seek another term as Senate Democratic leader and said he has locked up enough votes to win.
“I have a majority,” Byrd, who has held the post since 1977, told a news conference. He appeared with assistant Senate Democratic leader Alan Cranston of California and Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, secretary of the Democratic Conference, who announced that they will also seek their party posts again in the December party vote.
It is believed that this is the first time the Democratic leadership has run as a ticket.
Asked about complaints that the Byrd-Cranston-Inouye team failed to stack up to charismatic Senate Republican leader Robert Dole in the television era, Inouye said, “We may not be a bunch of Charlton Hestons, but we’ve had more unity in the last six years than at any time since I’ve been here.”
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