Ding f’in dong!

Well, it’s official – U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) has called it quits.

That’s right, after virtually ignoring a heck of a lot of voters in his district for years, Snyder won’t seek reelection this year. Perhaps his voters in Little Rock will miss his rambling, mustache-mumbling speeches and “what the hell is he thinking?” voting record, but I feel relatively certain that some of us in the more “unsophisticated” parts of his district won’t miss the man one bit.

Yes, the Second District does include Pulaski County, which touts the highest population in the state as it includes Little Rock, our capitol city – but the man rarely showed signs there were some voters rushing around in other parts of his district. While Snyder may have been a darling with the alleged elite in Little Rock (well, as elite as a group can be in Arkansas, at least), I’ve wondered one thing since the man lurched his way into Congress in 1996 – what does he have to offer us yokels in Saline, Conway, Faulkner, Perry, Van Buren, White and Yell counties?

Not a whole lot, apparently. A poll released Thursday showed that Snyder was trailing Republican challenger Tim Griffin by quite a bit and was headed for trouble after carrying water for the Democrats in the health care reform debate.

So Snyder is out of the race and I can’t say I’m stunned. He was about to face some angry voters in this year’s election cycle and he knew it.

Oddly, this can’t come as great news to Griffin as he’s got money and public outrage on his side while Snyder had, well, some well-connected friends in Little Rock. If the Democrats come up with a strong candidate then we might be looking at a horserace in the 2nd District instead of the butt whipping we hoped to see Griffin (or anyone, for that matter) inflict on Snyder.

Whatever the result, at least Snyder will be gone and that’s good news. We’ll be better represented by just about any Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green or Constitutionalist who can manage to get enough support to actually win the office. Hell, we’d be better represented by a rat terrier, a Folger’s coffee can or a sock monkey when you get down to it.