The Hill News

GOP fundraising firms and political operatives are smacking their chops lately over the playing field that is shaping up in the U.S. Senate come 2012. For many, the reality that five Democratic senators would already hang up their spurs and ride off in the sunset never really crossed their minds.
 
Yet that is what’s happened in recent months. From Joe Lieberman (Conn.), a recovering Democrat who ran as an Independent, to Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.), Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), Jim Webb (Va.) and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, many stalwarts of the chamber are packing it in.

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