Mel Martinez Resigning as RNC Chairman

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Florida Senator and Bush sycophant Mel Martinez will be resigning his position as the Chairman for the Republican National Committee. The speculation is that he's either leaving because being a Senator and the Chairman is too much work or his dismay at the Republican attitude toward minorities.

The scuttlebutt in the local community (where Mel was the county chairman before he was Bush's HUD man) is it's the latter. Mel went out first and hard to push Bush's immigration plan. He was lambasted by both his Florida constituents and the national base. His approval ratings are in the toilet in Florida and if he were running in the 2008 cycle, he'd be out.

The local reaction is brutal: Republicans hate him because he was behind immigration reform and Democrats hate him because he's so closely aligned with Bush. No amount of time is going to distance him from those alignments. I'd say that 2010 is going to be a bad year.