Why is Obama extracting Baucus from the Senate?

Baucus got the nomination for U.S. Ambassador to China. Why? It's all about the 2014 elections.

Someone must replace Baucus as Chair of the Finance Committee, and if that someone is Ron Wyden, it opens the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and if that goes to Mary Landrieu, who's up for reelection in 2014, she will embody a promise of favoritism toward the energy-producing state of Louisiana.

And Baucus has said he won't run for reelection. His seat is up in 2014, so if he leaves early, the Democratic governor of Montana will pick a new Senator, probably Lt. Gov. John Walsh, who'll then have an advantage in the 2014 election.

"Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, will retire from the Senate after 36 years..."

"... becoming the sixth Senate Democrat to leave the chamber in the 2014 elections, according to Democratic officials close to the senator."

[T]he Democrats will now be defending open seats in Iowa, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, South Dakota and West Virginia.

Seeing the news this morning, I felt I already knew that. I had to look up what I'd written a few days ago about Baucus (when he called the implementation of Obama care "a huge train wreck coming down").  That referred to an article that had this paragraph:

A six-term veteran, Baucus expects a tough re-election in 2014. He’s still trying to recover from approval ratings that nosedived amid displeasure with the health care law in his home state.

So do the Democrats risk losing the Senate?

During the last midterm elections in 2010, the GOP picked up a net six senate seats. 

Senior Democratic senator sees the implementation of Obamacare as "a huge train wreck."

"'I just see a huge train wreck coming down,' Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., told Obama’s health care chief during a routine budget hearing that suddenly turned tense."

Baucus is the first top Democrat to publicly voice fears about the rollout of the new health care law.... Normally low-key and supportive, Baucus challenged Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Wednesday’s hearing.

He said he’s “very concerned” that new health insurance marketplaces for consumers and small businesses will not open on time in every state, and that if they do, they might just flop because residents don’t have the information they need to make choices.

“The administration’s public information campaign on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act deserves a failing grade,” he told Sebelius. “You need to fix this.”...

At one point, as Sebelius tried to answer Baucus’ demand for facts and figures, the senator admonished: “You haven’t given me any data; you just give me concepts, frankly.”

ADDED: This must be the tip of an iceberg of anxiety among the Democrats, who are alone responsible for this law. For the first time, it crossed my mind that Democrats might decide to support repeal. It would be a huge admission of mistake — like denouncing a war you once supported — but at some point, going forward is even worse.

Harry Reid names Patty Murray, Max Baucus, and John Kerry to the deficit-reduction "super-committee."

The WSJ reports, noting that these 3 "are considered neither ideological purists nor eager compromisers."

Mr. Reid avoided choosing anyone in the so-called Gang of Six senators that recently came up with its own deficit-cutting plan. That group irked Mr. Reid by going its own way and trying to influence matters during the recent negotiations on the debt ceiling. In addition, those senators accepted cuts to Social Security at a time when Mr. Reid was strongly rejecting such cuts.

I have an uneasy feeling about this...