This one must have hurt, really. I mean: a guy spends over three and a half decades in Congress. He’s carefully establish himself as a convenient… receptacle… for almost-respectable defense lobbyist payoffs. And he’s just gotten the brass ring: next in line to his party’s top slot at Appropriations. And in the last Congress? That spot was the Holy Grail for people who wanted to wet their beaks while serving their country. This was, in other words, as close to being Norm Dicks’ moment as is allowable for people who are… like Norm Dicks.
Then it all went bad. Because Norm Dicks soon discovered – like the rest of the Democratic party – that the reason why David Obey (the Appropriations chair in 2010) decided to retire was because Obey realized that he wasn’t going to be the Appropriations chair in 2011. And thus it came to pass. In the meantime, Norm Dicks got publicly mocked by libertarians. The House duly flipped parties. Dicks himself had his worst showing (admittedly, 58%) since 1994 and the second/third worst showing in his electoral history.
And then those miserable so-and-sos in the new House leadership banned earmarks.