For most of my politically-aware life, Judd Gregg has been a part of it. And I never really liked the guy.

For the longest time, the New Hampshire GOP was dominated by two factions -- ones I liked to call "the arrogant rich" and "the arrogant stupid." Gregg was always a part of the former.

The guy was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Son of a former governor and GOP bigwig (Hugh Gregg), Judd The Dud got his law degree in 1975, went into tax law, and first won elective office in 1978, and has been on the public payroll ever since. He served on the Executive Council, in the US House of Representatives, two terms as governor, and then in 1992 he got himself elected to the Senate.

And during his time, I never really warmed to him. The one thing I remember about his term as governor was during a dispute with a Democrat named John Hoar, Gregg sniped that "he was well named." For the most part, he's been a bland, irritating nothing of a guy -- as far as I've been concerned.

Oh, and four years ago he won almost a million dollars from PowerBall. That really chafed me.

That's all changed in the past couple of years, as Gregg has finally seemed to grow a pair and is actually acting like a leader in the Senate. And he's been a major pain in the ass to the Obama administration -- which initially tried to co-opt him into accepting a Cabinet position.

Until Gregg found out that Obama was planning on taking the Census away from the Secretary of Commerce and putting it in the hands of his political operatives within the White House. That's when Gregg really got on fire.

And now he's tearing into the Obamoids over TARP.

Naturally, he's retiring this year, and we here in New Hampshire are gonna have to pick who's going to take his place.

Sigh... sure you can't stick around for just one more term, Judd? I can't say people will start calling you "Judd The Stud," but you've almost put the final nail in "Judd The Dud's" coffin.