by Jules Witcover

Senator Evan Bayh: Bye-Bye Bayh (c) Dan Wasserman
Senator Evan Bayh Leaving Congress (© Dan Wasserman)

Indiana's Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, who was on Barack Obama's short list to be his running mate in 2008, has sent him a delayed and very surprising thank-you note for the compliment.

Along with former Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Bayh can tell his grandchildren some day that if he didn't get to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, he was at least a wink and nod from it.

Also-rans Bayh and Kaine lost out to Joe Biden but went on to be loyal supporters of Obama in his winning campaign and in his first White House year. But Bayh has just handed his leader a big fat headache by deciding not to seek what from all indications would have been a very easy reelection to a third Senate term.

Instead, the president and his political strategists, already blind-sided by the loss of the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts to a conservative Republican, must now wrestle with the possible loss of the Senate itself in November's congressional elections.

With 57 Democrats and two Democratic-voting Independents in the Senate now, of whom 41 will not face the voters in the coming midterm balloting, the party of Obama figures to need to win only half of the 18 Democratic seats at stake to hold control (with Vice President Biden breaking a tie if necessary).

But the loss of Bayh's seat to the leading Republican running, former Sen. Dan Coats, could put farther out of reach the super-majority of 60 seats Obama enjoyed until GOP challenger Scott Brown won in Massachusetts.

The stated reason for Bayh's coming retirement was his frustration with the climate of partisanship in Congress that has stymied legislative business over most of the last decade, extending through the Bush years into Obama's first year in the White House.

Obama himself has repeatedly lamented it, and has doggedly clung to his 2008 campaign commitment to "change Washington" by reaching across the aisle to the minority Republicans, only to be rebuffed repeatedly. The GOP leaders say the offer of bipartisanship has been false because they have been shut out of all meaningful discussions on shaping legislation.

Bayh's decision comes just as Obama has met directly with the House Republican Caucus and is about to hold a health-care "summit" allegedly to negotiate the contents of a new reform bill that could attract Republican cooperation and support. Bayh's timing could not be more embarrassing to the president who earlier considered him as a running mate.

What must be particularly distressing to Obama is that Bayh long has been seen as a moderate, temperate Democrat who usually has occupied the reasonable middle ground of the party, while generally espousing its liberal social principles.

David Plouffe, Obama's 2008 campaign manager, wrote of the vice-presidential selection in his campaign retrospective, "The Audacity to Win," that "in our view (meaning himself and strategist David Axelrod) Bayh was the safest pick. He and Obama had not always voted the same way, which might cause some angst with our base."

Plouffe continued: "We would have to navigate this, but it also wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to demonstrate through our VP that Obama was truly committed to governing for results, not by rigid ideology."

Interviewing Bayh right after having discussed the vice presidency with Biden, Plouffe wrote: "There's no way this guy will color outside the lines. Biden may cross them with too much frequency. Biden will probably end up having more range -- he can reach higher heights but could cause us real pain. Bayh's upside and downside are probably the closest spread of the three (including Kaine)."

Speaking of himself and Axelrod, Plouffe concluded: "Bayh was someone we could both embrace, as he would likely make our lives easier and generate fewer surprises, but it felt like he might be too safe a choice."

In the end, though, Bayh has delivered a surprise hardly expected of him. For once he has colored outside the lines, to the possible detriment of Obama's hopes for a more supportive Senate in 2011.

 

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Senator Evan Bayh: Bye-Bye Bayh | Jules Witcover

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