Evan Bayh always liked attention -- he was always announcing coalitions of concern about excessively progressive legislation or tendencies in the Senate. And today, he is getting lots of attention for his odd announcement that he is not running for reelection as a senator from Indiana.
Full disclosure -- I don't know Sen. Bayh, although I met him once as he was raising money for the 2008 presidential campaign he ultimately did not pursue. He seemed to be a pleasant fellow, emphasizing his commitment to the environment and reproductive choice on a visit to California -- not the annoying loyal friend to medical device manufacturers and insurers that he seems to have become.
So what follows is pure speculation as to why he would announce today that he is not running for reelection even though he is leading in the polls, has $13 million in the bank, and every Democratic vote is essential in the Senate. This kind of last minute personal choice leaves literally just a couple of days for shell shocked officials to find a replacement.
1. It might be because momentum is building to reform or do away with the filibuster. Senators like Bayh have value only when the filibuster rule makes their vote somewhere between vote 51 and 60. After Sen. Durbin, number two in the Senate, came out for reform, Bayh's stock plummeted. No filibuster means much less attention for senators like Bayh (and Nelson and Lieberman, et al).
2. Perhaps it had something to do with the growing national outrage aimed at health insurance giant Wellpoint over the company's double-digit rate hikes for the self-insured. Premiums are up by 39% in California; Bayh's wife occupies a very lucrative position on the board of Wellpoint.
3. Could he be considering running for president in 2012 from the right of President Obama? By then, an obstructionist Senate might have played a key role in the failure of the first Obama term.
4. Some think he would rather be Indiana's governor once more. There, he has more influence than he does as a single centrist senator. The governorship opens up in 2012, as well.
5. He is putting himself up for auction to special interest groups - such as the drug lobby Pharma - which just ejected its colorful president Billy Tauzin (former chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee) for getting too cozy with the White House. The auction has far more value if it implicitly includes his vote in the remaining months of the current session.
Sen. Bayh blamed the lack of bipartisanship for his decision, specifically mentioning the collapse of the Baucus/Grassley tax cut legislation that was masquerading as a jobs program. This is the only reason that is likely to be entirely bogus.
While popular in Indiana, Sen. Bayh accomplished relatively little positive during his two terms in Washington. He will be missed only by the media, which loves the narrative of a senator who publicly obstructs the goals his own political party.
Bayh kicked the congress on his way out, a congress he had 10 years participation in making
"i hate the way this thing is constructed' and he helped construct it
That thesis has only been partially tested.
Since we have never seen a REPUBLICAN Senator publicly obstruct the goals of his own political party, we have no idea whether the media would get excited about that particular narrative.
Really? The media has been doing nothing but getting excited about how Lincoln, Lieberman, Bayh, Nelson and other DINOs have stymied the Hope-and-Change legislative agenda up to Obama's first SOTU address.
I sometimes wonder how Obama got the Stimulus II bill ("Help for Main Street Act") passed fresh into his term other than it was probably in the works after the Stimulus I ("Help for Wall Street and Executive Fat Cats Act") at the end of the Bush term, you know just before the Bush Great Recession.
The last half of 2009 was filled with nothing but news about how a few "conservative Democrats" or "liberal Republicans"--Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins believers in bipartisanship?? PLEASE!!---were the key to reforming a health care system that, believe it or not, a few tens of millions of people who could be cast as "My Name Is Earl" extras think is actually working!!
What is a country to do when too much of its electorate is so stupid that they willingly vote against their own interests?
That is a very intelligent question.
The rest of your post, however, I'm having trouble figuring out. Do you really think that there are Republicans who buck their party line? There was speculation that they might one day make an appearance. But they never showed up.
And while Democrats who kowtow to the right get praised by the corporate media as "centrists," I wonder if the same positive and supportive spin would be accorded to Republicans who tried to compromise with the Democrats.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Changing-the-US-Senate-rules-bring-back-democracy/278379601906?v=wall
We never see a blue state electing a Republican who votes with the Democrats. The Republican caucus is a cohesive caucus and the Dems need to be as picky about who we elect and not be above passing on someone who is too conservative.
We need to retire the Blue Dogs from both Houses of Congress. There is no such term as Red Dog is there?
And yes, RINOs have been hunted to extinction by the Club For Growth (which of course stands for destruction) and the "Christian Right" (which of course is unChristian and wrong). But that doesn't mean that replacing conservative Democrats with slightly-more-conservative Republicans would do the left any good.
Of course there would be no reason Democrats ignore that although I am sure they would never attempt to profit politically from bashing a health insurance company.
I find it terribly difficult to generate any sympathy for this poor, downtrodden corporation whose CEO makes only $10 million per year by denying money to sick people and funneling it to shareholders. Perhaps Susan Bayh can give her a tissue.
Thanks ever so.
Wow. If we can get the public financing of elections, imagine the tools that would start to jump ship? It's amazing to think that he actually cared about anything other than his own pocketbook.
It's not Dems versus GOP,
it is monarchical conservatism versus Liberal Enlightenment and Democratic Republics.
"America, the first modern liberal state was founded, without a monarch or a hereditary aristocracy.[8"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
Conservatism was founded and continues to be for Destroying the Republic and the Democracy and selling it to the plutocracy.
Conservatism was founded to undo the Enlightenment and the French revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
That philosophy was part and parcel of the USA founders inspiration and accomplishment.
So someone claims this guy is a liberal, so what? or has some liberal beliefs? What is the point of this reference?
The American people would do much better under conditions in which their country is split up into 4 or 5 different regions. The conservative could then live with conservatives and liberals could live with others of their ilk. If nothing else, it would make for an excellent experiment.
It up to the voters to figure it out.
Vote for liberals in the primaries then generally vote democratic except for certain very liberals independent or the one or two liberal republicans.
Splitting up the country will only make the world Plutocracy stronger.