Quitting the Senate was a no-lose move for the presidentially ambitious Bayh, since he can now crawl away from the political wreckage for a couple of years, plausibly alleging that he tried to steer the party in a different direction — and then be perfectly positioned to mount a centrist primary challenge to Obama in 2012, depending on circumstances.
Almost like parody.
If we’re lucky, Broder will start talking up a Bayh-Bloomberg Unity 12 ticket on Thursday.
Update. Larison:
Parties tend not to reward shirkers and deserters with promotion.
Keith
Quitting…it’s the new winning.
robertdsc
That is too grotesque to think about.
Balconesfault
Bayh might have a shot if he rebrands himself a Republican.
That is, if the teabaggers all go Galt and skip voting in the 2012 Republican primaries.
Of course, at that stage Republicans would be down to about 10% of the electorate. A bunch of rich white guys without the glibertarians and fundamentalists. Good luck with that.
stevie314159
Hamshers to the left of me, Broders to the right of me, stuck in the middle with you.
thejoz
This would be almost as much fun to make fun of as Palin/Bachmann 2012.
Scott
@thejoz:
This would be almost as much fun to make fun of as Palin/Bachmann 2012.
It really would be. Radical centrists don’t seem to be much different from radical rightists…
cincyanon
Bayh already has the national network. 85% of his campaign contributions came from out of state!
Pangloss
Galt!!!
Don’t need nobody.
Galt!!!
Don’t need anybody.
GALT!!!
When I was dumber so much dumber than today
I thought the world could not exist without my say…
Bubba
It is true that someone runnng for potus out of the senate in 2012 or 2016 will not have a chance (could Hillary”s decision to take SoS prove brilliant??), so from that angle if potus is his goal it is a smart move. However, I highly doubt that a “centrist” such as bayh, a phony deficit peacock, will have a chance in 2012 at least–bho IS a centrist.
demo woman
@stevie314159: That’s bad. Where’s Laura? She certainly would link to “that song” just in honor of you.
LABiker
Does Harold Ford own a home in Indiana? It’d be a shorter helicopter flight.
rashomon
A “Centrist” Primary challenge? Um, no. The very rare primary challenges in the Democratic party come from the left (e.g. Kennedy- Carter). In the Republican party they come from the right (e.g. Reagan-Ford). It’s amazing how many political “writers” have no idea how political parties work.
jeffreyw
Bayh-Fix Or Repair Daily? Sorry, too late now.
Comrade Javamanphil
I’ll take “Never going to Win” for $1600, Alex.
Violet
I prefer Palin/Bayh – The Quitters Ticket! That’s got Win written all over it.
Citizen_X
Oh, Broder’s little Applebee sprang instantly erect at this suggestion. I hope Bayh does it. Then we’ll get one more demonstration that Haupt Centerism, the Village’s fave philosophy, gets about as many votes as Ron Paul got in the primaries–1%.
And what kind of idiot calls quitting “a no-lose move?” How does that make any sense whatsoever? I’m not giving Lane the clicks, but I see that part of his address at the Kaplan Post is “postpartisan.” Arrgh.
I call dibs on his liver, post-Apocolypse.
batgirl
I also think that fucker Bayh is seriously considering to primary Obama in 2012. We can laugh but no good will come of it. Intraparty challengers of sitting presidents hurt and will make it that much more difficult for Obama to win in 2012. Not only will Bayh not win the primary but he could scuttle any chance that the Democrats have in the general.
I think Bayh needs to be added to the grumpy, vindictive old man club of Lieberman and McCain.
Kris
Right.
This would be the end of the democratic party as blacks would never ever vote for dems again.
Darkmoth
So, according to Charles Lane, democrats would vote for Evan Bayh because we think Obama is too far to the Left.
/snort
AnotherBruce
I can hardly wait to vote for the Mediocracy Party.
Darkmoth
@Kris:
While I hesitate to speak for all melanin-similar persons, I’m black and no black person I know would take personal offense at a primary challenge to Obama.
Frankly, I haven’t seen the black community embrace him to any significant extent, beyond the obvious symbolic one. In my humble opinion, the brothers would probably still rather hang out with Big Dog.
2th&nayle
@jeffreyw: Jeff, you’re just merciless! That pasta shell casserole looks wonderful! Did you said you used ‘bayh leaves’ in the sauce? How apropos!
Kris
@Darkmoth:
You must only know one other black person. Yes, go ahead and primary the FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT. See how that one works out for the democratic party.
thejoz
If Evan Bayh thinks he would actually win anyone over in a primary of any kind to be President, he’s even more deluded than we imagined.
This is like, Harold Ford + Sarah Palin delusion.
Oh God, can all three of them run on the same ticket? POTUS/VPOTUS/Eventual SOS?
Seriously. They’d get crushed, handily.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I can’t even conceive of the issue on which Bayh would position himself as more “centrist” than Obama. Somebody help me out.
Violet
Whatever ticket Bayh decides to run on, it should be called the bland ticket. There is nothing noticeable about Bayh at all. He’s eminently forgettable.
valdivia
@Keith:
you win the internets today.
jeffreyw
@2th&nayle: Did I? Don’t use those-they’ll leave a bad taste in your mouth.
thomas Levenson
Somebody tell me. There used to be a newspaper called the Washington Post around here. It was the house paper of a one-industry town, but it used to have a pretty good city room, and some sense of what a story was. What happened to that paper? I’ve been looking and looking and I just can’t find it anywhere. Someone keeps sending me this stupid parody of it — and they can’t even get the April 1 date right on the front page.
John
@Darkmoth:
Which is why the “Big Dog’s” wife did so well among black voters in the primaries in 2008? Was that comment frozen in amber some time in the early fall of 2007 and only now published?
Darkmoth
@Kris:
Nah, Jesse J ran for President and got crushed – twice. This didn’t noticeably impact AA turnout for Clinton.
Now, I’m not saying AAs would actually vote for Bayh. But the fact of a primary wouldn’t trespass on any unspoken covenant. Nor should it.
Comrade Luke
Bayh/Lieberman is the obvious choice.
gwangung
@Darkmoth: Doncha think a challenger is considered differently than from an incumbent?
John
What in the world is the basis for the idea that Obama is vulnerable to being primaries at all, much less from the right? An incumbent president is almost never primaried, and never primaries from the center. Obama commands the broad center of the Democratic Party. Does any really think that a dude from the rightmost edge of it really has a chance in the primaries? Who is Evan Bayh’s constituency among Democratic primary voters? This is just so totally insane.
And if Evan Bayh wanted to run for president in 2016, which seems more plausible, why would he retire?
PeakVT
since he can now crawl away from the political wreckage for a couple of years
Brave Sir Evan ran away
Bravely ran away, away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Comrade Luke: After HoJo was stumping for angry Grandpa? Just look how HoJo took out his 2004 humiliation on this country.
valdivia
@John:
because as Keith said at the beginning of this thread quitting is now the new path to the presidency. Obviously the media have bought the Sara Palin act hook, line and sinker.
Ginger Yellow
“Parties tend not to reward shirkers and deserters with promotion. ”
Yeah, but if any party would, it would be the Democrats.
Darkmoth
@John:
Well, Hillary isn’t Bill. I know it’s obvious, but the two aren’t indistinguishable (from a loyalty standpoint).
That being said, remember that Hillary and Obama were actually splitting black support before the primaries got heated (and racially tinged).
Napoleon
As much as I have come to believe Obama is simply a clown that is way out of his league and I would not be terribly upset if he gets primaried from the left if Bayh runs against him I am going full metal Obamabot for 2012. Maybe this is some secret plan of Rahm to get the left to support Obama (ok, joking about that part).
geg6
Evan Bayh thinks the party, made up of people like me and many others significantly to the left of ME, would vote for a douche like him in a primary? Has he been hanging with Harold Ford too much lately for reals? Have either of these guys actually ever MET a grassroots Dem? Ever?
Maude
@John: How close are we to Hillaryis45?
Napoleon
@John:
The same as Ford’s. IMO this has nothing to do with anything other then the monied interest telling the Dem party they can not get to far to the left or else. I would bet the monied interest that want Ford to run would still do so even if they thought he would loose, just to put a shot across the bow of the Dem party that they are not to represent the interest of working people. Bayh has spent his entire Senate career catering to those people and I would not be surprised if they have not put a bug in his ear.
scarshapedstar
Somewhere, Sarah Palin is snickering…
Napoleon
@Ginger Yellow:
Actually the Dems are a lot more merciless with kicking losers to the curb then the Reps. There are no second acts in the Dem party.
Darkmoth
@gwangung:
I don’t know why it would be. I haven’t seen the sort of relationship between Obama and the AAs community that would make a challenger actually offensive.
You might be able to make the argument that Obama losing the primary would depress AA turnout in the general. But that would depend on who he lost to, and how.
danimal
@geg6: I really think the centrist Dems think that they are in the middle, buffeted by teaparty buffoons and liberal activists. To me, that’s a totally foolish point of view, most Dems (not just liberal activists) are much farther to the left than they credit.
Hopefully, this is the first purging of the Clinton triangulators in the Senate. Their time has come and gone.
Darkmoth
@John:
Paranoia Moment: Bayh knows no primaried President wins re-election. He also knows Obama knows this. His threat to primary then becomes a big-arse bargaining chip for…something.
He doesn’t need to be able to win (he wouldn’t) he just needs to be a credible Primary candidate (he is).
John
@Darkmoth:
Er, yes, and Republicans used to get the majority of the black vote. What’s your point? The idea that Obama wasn’t particularly popular in the black community was one that made a lot of sense back in 2007. In the wake of the 2008 primaries, much less so, given that he won the black vote overwhelmingly pretty much everywhere (even New York state, although not by as large margins there as elsewhere). His approval ratings remain very high among African Americans – around 90%, from what I can gather.
Kris’s original point is probably silly, since Obama obviously isn’t going to lose a primary challenge, but the idea that Black people don’t care very much about Obama seems hard to accept. I don’t think any candidate has ever been as unanimously supported by the African American community as Obama has.
John
@Darkmoth:
Might? It would depend? Are you serious?
John
@Darkmoth:
Maybe. I just don’t think there’s any evidence that Bayh wants to run for president in 2012. For one thing, the guy seems to want to be president, but he doesn’t really seem to like the idea of running for president. He could have run in 2004 or 2008, when he might actually have had a chance of winning (especially in 2004), but he decided not to, apparently largely because he didn’t really want to run for president. That doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would want to spend a year of his life running a hopeless primary challenge to an incumbent president.
Evan Bayh wants to be president, no doubt, but he doesn’t want to actually have to run for president. A hopeless primary challenge is thus the opposite of the kind of thing you would expect Evan Bayh to do.
I tend to think Evan Bayh is going to do the obvious – take a lucrative lobbying job and appear on the news networks to concern troll his fellow Democrats even more than he does now. He’ll think about running in 2016, and then decide that he doesn’t want to, again.
aimai
Yes, Palin was the comparison that came to mind. Bayh is also an example of what happens when a political dynasty goes to seed. The seed pod never seems to know.
aimai
LosGatosCA
I love weak people quitting – natural selection.
Dan Larison
hitsmisses the mark:‘Democratic “centrists” typically don’t even do well in open contests for party nomination.’
That explains Clinton and Obama. Damn those socialists.
Toni
@Darkmoth: What would you need to see between Obama and AA’s to make you think they would take offense?
M31
If Bayh works on his Negro dialect, he’ll be a shoe-in.
mars
“Quitting the Senate was a no-lose move for the presidentially ambitious Bayh.”
Er, except that he lost, you know, his Senate seat.
Buzzybill
The google ad next to this post was about Palin 2012. That is how parties don’t reward quitters and shirkers.
mcd410x
You’re no Birch Bayh
Batocchio
Larison has a point, but isn’t he forgetting Lieberman and Palin?
2th&nayle
@Ginger Yellow:
Unless you happen to be a Republican Chicken Hawk! Then, well, you know, allowances must be made.
Red Hook Redhead
I suppose it might depend on whether the primary challenger was Michelle Obama… ; )
SiubhanDuinne
For reasons you don’t need to know (i.e. they are irrelevant, not secret) I find myself currently having to re-read parts of Atlas Shrugged. And because I’m pretty bored, I find myself playing word games. Here’s an anagram:
DAGNY + REARDEN = AYN RAND GREED
rootless_e
That’s a lie.
[ just trying out the BTD argument style]
nah. doesn’t do anything for me.
SiubhanDuinne
@M31:
Only if he’s also clean and articulate.
Veritas78
Eulogies about great statesmen ought to be delivered by someone other than themselves. He had to say it about himself because no one else would.
What a blow-hard phoney. No wonder he never got anywhere.
Whispers
Does anybody outside of Indiana like Bayh?
Is he expecting a big payday from somebody if he manages to take down Obama?
By “take down” I mean “hurt Obama so he loses the general election”
We haven’t seen a President lose in the primaries since LBJ. Even Carter was able to hold off Teddy Kennedy.
Whispers
Nobody ever has to read that book, much less re-read it.
JackieBinAZ
The Connecticut for Lieberman Party does – or at least it’s not in favor of demotion.
SiubhanDuinne
@Whispers
Yeah, actually sometimes they do. I never said I was enjoying it :-)
Quiddity
While I don’t like Bayh, I do think that if Al Gore had picked him as the running mate in 2000, instead of Lieberman, then Gore would have clearly won it in the Electoral College.
Lieberman did nothing to get close states like Ohio , Missouri, or Tennessee. Bayh might have.
What good was Lieberman?
Darkmoth
@John:
And? He’s a Democrat, of course he’s popular with us. My point isn’t that he’s unpopular, my point is that primarying him won’t abrogate some sacred trust with the Black community. This idea that there would be some sort of intense backlash is just misguided.
It’s not that he’s unpopular, he’s obviously very popular, as polls show. But that’s a long way from every AA family having a plaster bust of the guy in the living room. Go check out Jack and Jill politics sometimes, they blog from am afrocentric perspective, and they have been far from uncritical of the man.
This fear of primarying Obama solely because of AA backlash is unseemly. It makes me personally uncomfortable to think that swathes of the Left have bought into the meme that his AA support can’t be duplicated by a white man with sufficient charisma and outreach. Black people have been happily voting Democrats into office for decades, regardless of color, and I don’t expect that ended in 2008.
Darkmoth
@John:
Of course I’m serious. It’s not about the skin color, although that’s probably a factor. It’s about the charisma and the connection. Currently Obama is the foremost Dem in that regard, but that could change. It would also depend on the tone of the campaign.
Alan Keyes wouldn’t have beaten Hillary, nor (I suspect) would Jesse Jackson.
bob h
Note that Bayh was careful not to offend Republican sensitivities on the way out. Not to call them out as the true culprits they are.
AxelFoley
@Darkmoth:
Well, most brothas I know (myself included) would rather hang around the O-dog.
Oh, and trust, if the Dems do primary Obama, or find some way to screw him, it is over for the Democratic Party.
Fuck over the first black president, after African-Americans have been faithful to this party for decades. Oh please believe, knee-grows will abandon this party with a quickness.
AxelFoley
@Napoleon:
Yeah, like Obama needs your kind of support. Fuck outta here with that shit, clown.
Catsy
@Quiddity:
A question with no good answer for decades.