Another one bites the dust.

Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, announced this evening that he will not run for reelection in 2014.

Levin, 78, said the decision for him was "extremely difficult" but he decided with his wife that he could do a better job as a senator without campaigning.

"We decided that I can best serve my state and nation by concentrating in the next two years on the challenging issues before us that I am in a position to help address," Levin said, "in other words, by doing my job without the distraction of campaigning for reelection."

Levin, the senior Senator from Michigan, was first elected into the Senate in 1978.