MSNBC’s First Read: “It’s not a surprise,” one Democratic aide told First Read on Obey’s retirement. “We’ve been talking with him all along.”

Yes, that’s why he set up a reelection campaign web site, with news articles going up as recently as April 30.

Politico, by comparison, reports, “Colleagues were caught off guard, since a chairman of such power rarely walks away without a fight.”

Democratic aides are the inverse of economists quoted by Reuters, AP, and other news wires. While the economists are always finding gloomy economic news to be “unexpected,” Democratic aides tell us they’re never surprised by anything.