The AP is reporting that Peter Agre, the Minnesota native and Nobel Prize in Chemistry who had been publicly mulling a bid for the DFL nomination for U.S. Senate, has decided to quit mulling and not do it.
From the AP story:
“He said he encountered encouragement and skepticism, and he ultimately concluded a campaign would carry more personal and professional costs than he was willing to bear.
‘As much as I’d like to run, I’ve decided it’s just not the time to step in,” Agre said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “It’s late. I just don’t think I can make the race.’”
Fun fact: While several Nobel Peace Prize winners have served in the Senate, no one who won a Nobel in a science category ever has. Looks like Prof. Agre, who is a professor and administator at Duke, won’t be the first. Probably wasn’t going to happen anyway, but might have been interesting to see a scientific mind applied to the issues of the day during the campaign.
Given their training, it seems to me the doctors in congress might be considered to come from a scientific mindset.
But one would think that training and discipline similar to Dr. Agre’s might reasonably lead most scientists to a conclusion similar to his about the costs.
I was a supporter of more than one “egghead” for political position in the past (e.g.,Stevenson) but history says those who have been most successful in representing the views of the people effectively have been of another bent of mind. Scientists are not widely thought of as “people persons,” any more than bean counters. Somehow “Senator Einstein” jars a bit.
Bill O’Reilly once flaunted someone on his television talk show who he said was nominated for a Nobel Prize.
Upon closer inspection, the person was not nominated in an “official” manner but, was just nominated by letter of an elected person from the USA.
Nowadays I would think that a lot of scientists are probably people persons. Technology and technological sharing would probably help to make this possible.