Evan Bayh not Running for Re-Election

From what I heard, Coats had no chance of winning. Don't understand the decision. I liked Bayh, but for a guy who seemed to have so much future ahead of him, he seemed to be rather indifferent about his own career.

 

You think the attack machine wouldn't be cranked up just as far as it is now if Hillary were president?

It's easy to play the what-if game, but she wasn't exactly a popular figure on the right.

 

I think if you asked most republicans if they wish Hillary had won instead of Obama, the answer would be a resounding yes. I think right now, if you asked most democrats if they wish Hillary had beaten Obama, the answer would probably be yes as well.

 

It will be interesting to see if a big-name democrat runs against Obama in 2012.

 

Not the same thing. Republicans might wish she had won, but they'd still be attacking her.

A mid-term election is always a hard slog for the party in power, unless the party in power has the ability to use scare tactics. Republicans acting like this year is some sort of political novelty are being pretty disingenuous.

 

There would be some Democrats who would say that, but not most. The reality is that even with Clinton -- or ESPECIALLY with her -- Republicans would be just as obstinate as they are now. As long as the strategy of saying no to everything, no matter if they said yes before, works at the polls, they'll do it.

I'm not sure it would matter what Democrat was president (or what Republican, for that matter). For better or worse, and accelerated because of this lousy economy, we're in a time of sweeping change, and not because Barack Obama said so. Incumbents carry the risk of getting pounded for happening to be in charge as this is going on, no matter what they do, or don't do.

 

Too early to tell much on the Obama Presidency just yet. Lots of good Presidents have overcome rocky starts to their terms. Some bad ones just kept circling the drain, though.

Can't think of another 'Big name' D who would fit the bill. Won't be Hillary, though--that ship has sailed, I believe.

Also don't see 08 going the way it did up and down the ticket with her instead of Obama.

 

You know who I could see running against Obama in the primaries -- some left-wing media star such as Anthony Weiner. But that's pretty much it. Because (and we're getting way ahead of ourselves), if Obama wins and doesn't change vice presidents, 2016 starts off just as wide open as 2008.

Back to Bayh, I don't imagine the Senate changing much because of his departure. Not because he was a fairly conservative Democrat, but because he was mostly an empty vessel.

 

Agreed. He's been a DINO for years. How he ever made the final two for veep is a mystery, unless it was all about carrying Indiana .. which Obama ended up doing anyway.

Sounds like there may be a couple of good Dem candidates from the southern part of the state. Vis MSNBC First Read:

As for who could run to replace Bayh, look to Reps. Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill. Democrats are working to convince either -- both of whom represent swing districts in the Southern part of the state. Ellsworth, the former Vanderburgh County sherriff, is seen by some observers as, potentially, the strongest Democratic candidate. Hill is a former Indiana high school basketball star.

 

There won't be a significant primary challenge to Obama, surely not from Bayh. My only prediction for '12 is that new Republican challengers will emerge from the flock of GOP legislators and governors who will get elected in '10. They will replace Romney, Palin, etc.

 

Bayh was forced out by the revelation that he doesn't even live in Indiana. He's got a tiny condo there but his primary residence is and has been for years - in Virginia. That's where his wife lives and where he's raising his kids - not Indiana. That would have killed his re-election.

By jumping out now - Bayh can spin things that he doesn't like the direction the President is taking things and that he dropped out because he plans to challenge him in 2012. Bayh can also say because he was going to challenge Obama in 2012 that it would not have been fair to the people of Indiana to have him run for a 6-year term office. He can use that for his excuse and maybe even use some of that campaign warchest spreading that spin.

Obama is set up like Lyndon Johnson in 1968. I can easily see Bayh or some other Democrat beating him in the NH primary in 2012.

 

Bayh didn't even bother to have a condo the first time he ran for political office in Indiana (as secretary of state), and no one cared. Bayh himself was raised in DC, though Birch kept the family farm going back home for appearance's sake.

Of the reasons for Bayh to get beat in 2010, residency would have been last on the list. But he wasn't going to lose anyway. And he sure as heck isn't running for president in 2012. Or if he is, he's not going anywhere.

I'm starting to wonder if the reason he's leaving is because he was using the Senate only to advance his name to become president. Once it became clear that would never happen, and once it became clear that a reacharound-across-the-aisle person was no longer valued in a Senate that operated like trench warfare on the Western Front, Bayh saw no reason for him being there.