Dorgan’s FEC Filings Indicate His Decision To Retire Was A Sudden One

I’ve been poking around in Senator Dorgan’s 4th quarter FEC filings today trying to answer the question: “What will he do with his campaign war chest?”
There aren’t a lot of answers to be had in that report (which was apparently run through a copier in Dorgan’s office about 100 times to make it all but impossible to read), but it is interesting to look at some of the timing in the report.
He raised a total of $455,551 in the 4th quarter of 2009, a pretty heft sum for a guy who didn’t even have an opponent, and he was still taking big-money contributions well into December. That left him with $4,226,616 at the end of the year.
Dorgan also gave back just $1,300 in the 4th quarter ($43,591 for the year).
What does all that mean? Dorgan was running full-steam ahead for re-election…until he wasn’t. Which means that something happened to make him change his mind and retire.
What that something was is anyone’s guess, but I’m guessing it was a release of more bad polling numbers for him along with the battering he took from the tea party movement over the summer.