This is interesting, from Matt Yglesias:
Bayh’s been the second-most conservative Democrat in the 111th Senate (after Ben Nelson), but still to the left of all the Republican members. Interestingly, the Bayh/Lugar pairing in Indiana is just about the only instance of two Senators from different parties representing the same state with a somewhat similar voting record. Other states with split Senate delegations see huge chasms between the voting records of the Senators.
I don’t have anything intelligent to add, I just wasn’t aware of this.
Update. Do you think Bayh is coordinating all of this with Rahm?
arguingwithsignposts
Waiting for that other shoe to drop …
The Grand Panjandrum
Maybe someone could put a thread about the Octomom just to change things up a bit. I can only take so much Evan Bayh in one day.
PeakVT
I always go to Progressive Punch because you can drill down to see specific votes. By their scorecard, Bayh sucks in the 111th, but he is still 30pts higher than the best Republican.
The problem with Bayh, Lincoln, Nelson, et al. is that they grandstand against the Democratic Party and undermine it’s message. If they’re going to vote against the party line, I wish they would do it and then STFU.
aimai
Well, yeah, I mean, is this really surprising? On balance–if the alternative is a Republican, even a conservative Democrat is better for us as a party, in a Senate seat.
The problem for us as a party is that when the seat is held by a conservadem there’s no incentive or ability for the state democratic party to work to strengthen the party to the left of the senator. In fact, it can be downright dangerous. The status quo works, and the Senator has all the power of incumbency, so no one rocks the boat. And there’s very little attempt to groom a new, more progressive, set of political actors. So in these red states with conservadems you never seem to have a good, deep, bench of slightly more progressive dems out there ready to run.
I think this is a problem in general with the Senate–look at MA? Kennedy and Kerry’s longevity in the Senate mean that local people with political interests hit a glass ceiling. I’m proud of (most of our) congressional reps but the local state government is appallingly medicore and the really smart people either decide to make it in business or education, they don’t stick around to be in government when they can’t rise very high.
aimai
TR
Andrea Mitchell just called Evan Bayh “one of the bright stars of the Democratic Party.” Sheesh.
Broder is probably inconsolable.
DougJ
@aimai:
I didn’t know Bayh was quite that conservative in terms of his voting record.
Napoleon
@PeakVT:
I think Nelson actually doesn’t do it nearly as often as Bayh, Lincoln or Laundiue (sp?).
Napoleon
@DougJ:
I saw something where he actually started voting more conservatively the second the Dems got in a position to actually pass stuff.
jharp
Actually Richard Lugar is a pretty reasonable man.
And no Bayh fan here but I fear we could get something worse.
Balconesfault
I’m not really bothered by these guys voting conservative … as much as I’m bothered by any Dem who supports a filibuster of key Dem legislation.
As I’ve said before – voting against a bill signals you don’t like it.
Supporting a filibuster signals you don’t trust the people who are crafting the bill – that you consider them corrupt or dishonest enough that their bill shouldn’t actually be considered.
And if you consider your own party that corrupt or dishonest – you have a real problem.
rob!
I don’t know, for some reason I’m not upset about this. Bayh’s a preening dick, and maybe this will light a fire under Harry Reid’s liver-spotted ass to change the filibuster rule, because the D’s will never have 58-59-60 votes in the Senate ever again.
At least when a Republican takes the seat, we’ll KNOW how he’ll vote, and not have to endure the shock (and resultant scramble) of getting stabbed in the back by someone like Bayh.
eemom
@TR:
aw, give her a break. She’s married to Alan Greenspan, so pretty much anything higher on the evolutionary scale than a lizard looks like a “bright star” to her.
Barry
rob!
“I don’t know, for some reason I’m not upset about this. Bayh’s a preening dick, and maybe this will light a fire under Harry Reid’s liver-spotted ass to change the filibuster rule, because the D’s will never have 58-59-60 votes in the Senate ever again.”
Well, how did Reid do with the biggest majority in 30 years or more *and* a charismatic president, *and* an opposition who had discredited themselves *and* the worst economic crisis in 70 years? IMHO, if he had p*ssed off enough Senators to lose his post next year, but had passed a bunch of stuff, he’d have made his name in political history. As it is, he’s a schmuck and a failure, and will probably lose his seat next November, sliding into the obscurity of failing schmuckdom.
And if he *does* keep his seat and his leadership position, how can he deliver more with fewer resources next year?
Citizen_X
That. With Rethug senators today, there is NO negotiating room. You know how they’re going to vote.
I get that there’s one less Dem vote, but on the good side, there should be 1/4 less (i.e. out of
Bayh, Landrieu, Nelson, Lieberman) Bluedog drama.eemom
you do know that Jane is ON that motherfucker already…..
JK
Lobbying work could be landmine for Coats’ campaign
http://www.indystar.com/article/20100214/NEWS/2140381/Coats-lobbying-could-be-landmine-in-quest-for-Senate-nomination
Evan Bayh’s Narcissism
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/12/evan-bayhs-narcissism.php
TR
@eemom:
True. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear her call Robert Byrd a “young stud.”
ellaesther
@The Grand Panjandrum: Ha! I like you, GP, I truly do.
NR
Don’t put too much stock in those Congressional scorecards. They are only based on what is allowed to come to a vote, and that is based on a conservative political infrastructure.
For example, we never got a vote on single-payer in this Congress (the leadership promised a vote, but then reneged at the last minute). If we had, how many Democrats do you think would have voted for it? My guess is no more than about 50 in the House and maybe 15 in the Senate. Or a return to Reagan-era tax rates. How many Democrats would vote for that?
Yet these things will never show up on a Congressional scorecard, because they never come up for a vote. And so these scorecards present a very skewed picture of what’s “progressive” and what’s “conservative.”
Ana Gama
@Barry:
From the This Just In department, the Tea Party has been certified in NV as a third party, and they will be running a candidate against Reid and the Repub nominee.
ellaesther
I think Bayh is surely coordinating this with someone. I mean, it’s so close to the filing deadline, and he is, after all, a lifetime Democrat. I just… don’t know what to think, I guess, and it only makes sense to my limited brain that there is some kind of thinking going on that I just haven’t figured out yet.
Perhaps I give our political class too much credit. That is absolutely a possibility.
JK
Best reaction quote to Bayh announcement
“It’s hard to be that upset about a quintessential centrist wanker leaving the World’s Worst Deliberative Body.” – Scott Lemieux
h/t http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2010/02/like-seeing-larry-wildmon-going-off.html
Zach
I’m trying to figure out what the odds are of Bayh taking the road in which he makes reasonable votes advancing Obama’s deficit-reducing agenda instead of taking the path in which he maximizes his prospect for effortless post-congressional enrichment.
Extremely low… maybe someone needs to tell him that being the one Senator to broker health reform (he could position himself as someone without a stake in the game) will make for a very profitable book and trip through the lecture circuit.
Fair Economist
Even more interesting: there’s a Democrat trying to get signatures to get on the primary ballot:Tamyra d’Ippolito. She’s supposedly a 1000 signatures short, especially in the 8th district.
Her platform is getting healthcare reform and advocating for the poor. She’s a small business owner and cancer survivor.
I hope she gets in, because I would love to see the corporatists at the DNC forced to support somebody with decent goals. If the healthcare reformists want a platform, she could be it.
Violet
I’m wondering about a scandal. Sudden resignation announcements often seem to have reasons. Sex scandal doesn’t seem likely. Financial scandal? Maybe his wife is in some kind of legal trouble?
feebog
Rob!@11
It won’t be Harry that changes the rule. He is running well behind all Republican challengers in the polls right now. Put a fork in him and move on.
With Bayh bailing, this is beginning to look very grim for Democrats. We are going to lose Arkansas unless Blance Lincoln is primaried out, and even then it will be a close race. In Delaware Mike Castle is a very popular figure, former Governeer, long term congressman, that is going to be a very tough seat to hang onto. Ditto, Colorado, and Illinois. Oh, and North Dakota, no question that seat turns over.
Thats five, plus Harry’s seat makes six, which brings us to a 53 seat majority with Lieberman, Nelson and Lanrieu in the mix. We do have three races where we could turn over a seat; New Hampshire, Ohio and Missouri. Never the less, it is looking more and more likely that if we hang on to a majority, it will be very slim.
Ana Gama
@Violet: I’m wondering, too. Josh Marshall reports that Bayh’s senate staff and campaign staff were caught flat-footed by his decision.
Ailuridae
@feebog:
Thats five, plus Harry’s seat makes six, which brings us to a 53 seat majority with Lieberman, Nelson and Lanrieu in the mix. We do have three races where we could turn over a seat; New Hampshire, Ohio and Missouri. Never the less, it is looking more and more likely that if we hang on to a majority, it will be very slim.
On a purely procedural note if the Democrats are going to do the requisite work for the country they need to get any taxation legislation passed before Election day 2010. If you think that a 53 seat majority in the Senate with Landrieu, Pryor, Nelson etc is ever going to pass more progressive taxation legislation you are out of your mind.
madmatt
Of course rahm would prefer another rethug from indiana, he is the best thing the rethug party has going. What do you expect from the son of an israeli terrorist and an admitted IDF babykiller!
NR
@feebog: Yeah, the Dems are going to lose a ton of seats in November, so the change in the filibuster rule will come too late. I don’t really see any difference between a Senate with 51 Democrats and no filibuster, and the Senate we had with 60 Democrats and a filibuster. 52-53 Democrats and no filibuster might be marginally better, but really, we may be doing this just in time to hand a filibuster-free Senate to President Palin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Violet:
Heh. I was just gonna say I smell Edwards II
JK
Who will run?
h/t http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/6409/insen-who-will-run
Ed in NJ
My guess is that Bayh is resigning to begin his campaign for the presidency, beginning with a primary challenge to Obama in ’12.
ellaesther
@Ana Gama: Oh. Well then. No deep thinking that I just couldn’t figure out.
Hmmm.
Ok, now I’m with Violet. Scandal, or impending sorrow (wife about to dump him, terrible diagnosis for someone).
Violet
@feebog:
Saw that the Teabaggers are going to primary Reid’s opponent. That could create a lot of negative press for the Republican, whoever that is. Might be just enough to make Reid look good enough to get re-elected.
Violet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Heh. Maybe you’re right. I just can’t see it. Bayh seems enormously boring. The Edwards thing never surprised me. Disgusted me, but didn’t surprise.
@Ana Gama:
If his own staff didn’t know, then something is up. Dread diagnosis or scandal or something. Longtime pols just don’t act this way.
Ana Gama
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/13/report-tea-party-field-candidate-battle-harry-reid/
Davis X. Machina
Differing from the son of a Naz-sympathizing large-scale distributor of illegal drugs how?
Ana Gama
@Violet: Yeah, I would agree. His behavior is very odd. From TPM:
kay
@Violet:
This made me laugh out loud, Violet. You and I are gunning for Bayh’s wife :)
Wouldn’t that be GREAT! I’m perfectly serious here.
demo woman
Considering he called the President to inform him before Sen. Reid, who did not receive his phone call until 11:45 am, I’m thinking the Bayh had his feelings hurt.
mcc
@DougJ: As I understand Bayh has been wildly inconsistent with his voting record, doing streaks of voting very liberally followed by streaks of voting very conservatively. I’ve seen some people claim the streaks neatly corresponded with upcoming elections of various sorts. But I dunno.
I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or not. The problem is bayh would antagonize liberals on tv shows or something but he wasn’t really “the problem”. I can point to three or four conservadem senators I can understand an argument we actually would be better off with a Republican in that seat but Bayh hasn’t especially been one.
And he probably actually were as good as we were going to get in Indiana. From the very little I dimly understand about Indiana politics having lived there for awhile Indiana doesn’t really like Democrats but sometimes decides it really likes certain people. Evan Bayh is one of those people who could get elected consistently in Indiana, and one of the few that was also a Democrat. I don’t know what other Democrat could get elected, especially given the strange and messy way Bayh resigned. Indiana did startlingly enough go blue in 2008, and maybe a Democrat could have been elected in Indiana that year? This year, seems unlikely.
In the end I think all I have to say is Evan Bayh == Sarah Palin…
Violet
@kay:
It would be awesome! I wonder if there’s some kind of horrible scandal brewing with her that would have bled all over his re-election bid. Since his staff didn’t even know, it doesn’t make sense that he’d quit on a whim.
Or maybe he is John Edwards II.
mcc
Wait, that name sounds familiar. What does wikipedia say about him…
Davis X. Machina
Reminds me of the joke about a tactics-fixated Massachusetts Democratic pol (probably redundant) whose opponent dies in the middle of a hotly-contested primary. “Yeah, I know he’s dead, but what do you think he means by it?”
Ana Gama
Stories are starting to emerge that Bayh was pissed at Reid for gutting the jobs bill. Jesus Christ.
Sentient Puddle
@rob!:
But me, I fail to see how someone who votes with you 0% of the time is better than someone who votes with you X% of the time (where X is a number greater than 0 and less than 100).
MagicPanda
I realize this is slightly OT, but in thinking about the behavior of Bayh over this past year, it just screams lack of Senate leadership.
One thing I don’t understand about cloture / fillibuster / etc… Couldn’t the Senate Democratic leadership just make it clear to members that fillibustering of Democratic legislation will not be tolerated, and that Senators who disobey will lose their seniority? Or if that isn’t possible, could they be threatened with being moved to less important committees, etc?
DougJ
@mcc:
In the end I think all I have to say is Evan Bayh == Sarah Palin…
Yeah, though I don’t know if even William Shattner could make Baby’s pompous bloviating about partisanship sound cool.
Davis X. Machina
Depends on whether your fundamental premise is that politics is about getting something done, or that politics is a form of self-expression.
Tonal Crow
@PeakVT:
That’s a huge problem. Democrats are bad enough at making effective (read: emotional) arguments without leading politicians embracing GOP memes.
bemused
I heard the tail end of Bayh’s presser. My, how principled he is. No doubt he will now seek to ‘do the Lord’s work’ in Lloyd Blankfein fashion.
Violet
@Sentient Puddle:
It isn’t better in the end result – 0% votes vs. X% votes. But at least with the Republican the Dems don’t waste their time trying to get that vote. Nor do they have the Dem out there speaking against the Dem policies on Sunday shows, etc. and feeding memes like “Dems are infighting,” “Dems can’t control their own,” “Dems don’t know what they want,” “Obama can’t control Dems.” Etc.
The slime trail this kind of Dem leaves behind is destructive to getting anything done because the time it takes for these idiots to grandstand and so forth allows Republicans to create more chaos and confusion and ends up weakening the Democrats that are trying to get things done.
Maybe it’s worth it for that one vote. But if the one vote comes with a massive cost that ends up messing up other legislation and strengthening the Republicans, I’m not so sure it is worth it.
AxelFoley
@rob!:
ROFLMBAO!
kay
@Violet:
I met him a a firehouse pancake breakfast once. I was actually there for pancakes. My father’s from Indiana. Bayh happened to be there. I don’t think he’s John Edwards, and I was on to John Edwards as someone not to be trusted.
No, we must pin our hopes on his wife being a crook. I don’t think he’s a philanderer. I do think he’s bought and paid for.
I would prefer a philanderer, actually, if the choice is “cheats on his wife” or “bought and paid for”. I’m not marrying these people, after all.
CalD
WTF is Yglesias talking about?
I don’t know where’s he’s getting his information but Evan Bayh isn’t the second most conservative Demorocrat in the senate or even the third. He’s probably fifth at best (or worst, as it were). Landrieu, Byrd and Bill Nelson would all land between Bayh and Ben Nelson for sure. And neither is Richard Lugar particularly centrist in his voting habits.
Bayh’s lifetime voting scorecard average from the American Conservative Union is 20.7%, which was pretty close to dead on the mean for all Democratic senators the last time I checked. Most of the other Blue Dogs are clustered within a couple of point of him, plus or minus. Dick Lugar’s lifetime average ACU score is 77.6%, which I believe would be about 5 points below the mean for a Republican, if memory serves. Not the worst of the breed perhaps, but Olympia Snow he’s not.
I expect this kind of crap from the MSM, but you would think a guy like Matthew Yglesias would know how to use a web browser. It’s not like it’s hard to look this stuff up.
Kryptik
@Sentient Puddle:
In cases like Bayh, it’s an assurance that you won’t have someone with a tendency to promise you their vote, then immediately turn around and go on TV about how he can’t vote for the Dem proposal because it’s just so far left and harmful to America. It can be worse than a stock Republican vote because 1) it inflates Dem leadership’s internal vote counts and makes it look more optimistic than it is, 2) it plays into the media’s beloved memes about Dem infighting, and 3) helps to paint horribly centrist legislation as somehow radically left wing, and allows the right to further shift the goalposts right to where anything left of Fred Hiatt is unacceptably commie marxist takeover.
Napoleon
@CalD:
It may depend on what time period you look at. I swear several months ago I had read that when the Dems came back into the majority that his voting took a real conservative turn. Perhaps Matt is just looking at the last Congress or so.
John Quixote
@Napoleon: Bayh’s all over the place when it comes to votes. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I’m not even sure Bayh knows.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Violet:
He’s leaving to go hiking the PHARMAlachian Trail.
Bayh, bayh Miss American Pie.
I drove the Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.
[so instead I went to Bartertown].
Barry
Me: “As it is, he’s [Reid] a schmuck and a failure, and will probably lose his seat next November, sliding into the obscurity of failing schmuckdom.”
Ana Gama: “From the This Just In department, the Tea Party has been certified in NV as a third party, and they will be running a candidate against Reid and the Repub nominee.”
I’d expect the GOP to really lean on the Tea Party in NV, and anybody who might endorse their candidate. Killing the head of the Dem leadership in the senate is valuable, and last I heard Reid is pretty f*cking vulnerable. The GOP won’t want to lose an easy kill.
Barry
Napoleon (about Bayh’s voting record):
“I swear several months ago I had read that when the Dems came back into the majority that his voting took a real conservative turn. Perhaps Matt is just looking at the last Congress or so.”
I betcha that Bayh was voting more liberal, when he knew that the GOP would fillibuster it and that Bush would veto anything that got through.
Basically, the mother-f*cker is a fraud.
bayville
@CalD:
No Yglesias is correct based on the voteview.com charts he links to.
Bayh, in fact, was the most conservative Democrat in the 110th Senate…even more conservative than Bennie Nelson. The ranking system has some flaws (for example Feingold is ranked No. 57 this year after being ranked as the most liberal the past two U.S. Senate sessions). Feingold was penalized for the presumed “conservative” vote against Geithner as SecTreasury.
Barry
Our biggest problem with Bayh, that f*ckhead from Arkansas and Lyingberman is really that they’re going to retire to multimillion $/year ‘jobs’ in payment for their f*cking us over. As long as one can be a back-stabber conservadem and get paid for it, we’ll never be rid of them.
Ana Gama
@Barry: Oh, I know Reid is still vulnerable. But with all the weirdness within the teabagger movement, and with loud noisy factions rejecting the GOP, it will be an interesting thing to watch. I wouldn’t count Reid out just yet.
Violet
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
That’s a given. But it’s the timing of the announcement that is making me speculate. If he just wanted to make gazillions from lobbying, he could have announced he wasn’t running for re-election months ago. Why now, one day before the filing deadline, which caught everyone off guard, even his staff? Something’s fishy there.
Gene108
The more I read about Bayh, the more I like him…Birch..that is…
Davis X. Machina
He’s almost certainly using DW-Nominate party allegiance scores.
INDIANA 100 BAYH 75.34
NEBRASK 100 NELSON_BEN 70.4
MAINE 200 SNOWE 41.8
MAINE 200 COLLINS 48.68
100 is Democrat, 200 is Senate.
Sanders gets an 85 or so — it’s not a measure of progressivism per se, but of party loyalty, based on hundreds of votes.
Sentient Puddle
@Violet:
So they can quit trying to cajole Sen. Generic R to vote for some bill…and instead try and find some other senator who may be open to voting for it.
There’s no “but at least…” here. You have to get a certain number of votes to get legislation passed, and the more people you have that aren’t open to voting for it at all, the less options you have to get the votes you need to get shit done.
Meh. I think this sort of thing is pretty soft influence at best, and the kind of thing that can be countered by other Dems going on the shows to push back against the meme. Which yes, they’ve been pretty terrible at, but it’s not something you accomplish by replacing them with Republicans.
Barry
Violet, my guess is that he was (a) keeping his options open and (b) The Money made him an offer – they’d probably be willing to pay $10’s of millions for each senate seat, and he probably decided it was time to cash in.
In addition, 2011-12 is gonna suck big time, even for a back-stabbing conservadem. The GOP will go to a level of obstruction which makes this session look good.
JGabriel
Sigh. This will only make Olympia Snowe more powerful!
.
Toni
I still think there is a shoe to drop in this whole Bayh story. According to TPM, as of late Thursday he was planning to shoot ads for his reelection bid on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. This was from a local paper quoting his campaign manager. He was also planning to file for re-election this week. So his distaste of the partisanship in congress came to a head over the weekend?
El Cid
For a lot of Democratic Senators, though, a loss of the Senate would mean a lot less stress having to act like they want to pass things that Democrats support.
Violet
@Sentient Puddle:
I’m not saying that losing a Dem Senator is a good thing. But losing a conservadem is less bad than losing someone like Ted Kennedy.
The Dems have been terrible at messaging and had they been better perhaps some of the impact of people like Bayh might have been mitigated. Also, if they’d been more disciplined, conservadems in general wouldn’t have been able to get away with so much crap, more things would have got done, and in general the public would have a more favorable opinion of Dems. The lack of discipline and messaging failure have not been good for the Dems.
John
I assume this wasn’t true of Pennsylvania before Specter’s switch (Specter was very moderate and Casey is also fairly moderate). I’d also guess that it’s not true of New Hampshire, where Judd Gregg is in the leftiest third or so of the Republicans (for whatever that’s worth) and Shaheen is relatively conservative. Alaska and Florida probably also show less variation than average (Murkowski and LeMieux are relatively moderate for Republicans; Begich and Nelson are relatively conservative Democrats).
I’d imagine that in all but the first case, the gap is still pretty large, though.
Barry
JGabriel
“Sigh. This will only make Olympia Snowe more powerful!”
No, it’ll make her less powerful (and Lyingberman as well).
She won’t be the deciding vote on anything, because the GOP won’t let anything be passed.
demo woman
Wonkette has his speech. The first minute his wife tried to rub the skin off her son’s back. It must be her connections that are causing problems.
The Raven
@Ana Gama:
Oh, good–that’ll split the Republicans.
As to the broader issue, it looks to me that the Democrats are splitting left-and-right the way the Whigs did in 1852. The issue that shredded the Whigs was “slavery in the territories;” it looks like the one that’s going to get the Democrats is corporatism.
(I wrote this up a few weeks ago; it seems that the process is continuing.)
Chris Johnson
Here’s my guess. He’s not a philanderer, and he wasn’t a conservadem- he was a MOLE. He’s literally a secret agent for the pharmaceutical industry, reporting back to them, taking their orders, and it’s all about health care reform. Whoever he’s working for will go to any length and kill any number of people to stay in control- may be pharma, may be health insurance- and his primary mission is to make sure any HCR fails or is totally subverted, whatever the cost to the country and the Democrats.
And he got busted.
I say somebody has tapes, not bedroom tapes but tapes of him conspiring to abuse his office. The pattern of on-again-off-again loyalty suggests somebody who’s being run in such a way that they garner trust in order to subvert it. The guy himself has no principles whatever and is being paid off to be an industry mole, literally reporting to them and acting at their direction. I don’t see how any lesser treachery could produce a bombshell that would have him reverse course this abruptly.
KCinDC
Tamyra d’Ippolito wins the coveted Erick Erickson endorsement for the Democratic nomination (though he hasn’t realized that someone named Tamyra might be a woman).
cincyanon
There are no scandals about to show up just the everyday “who are you serving and who are you in bed with?” type allegations an upcoming campaign would expose him to.
Here’s a good article from a Hoosier at Huffington:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-sledge/evan-bayhs-very-long-2009_b_462736.html
An interesting nugget:
“85% of Bayh’s campaign cash comes from out-of-state contributors, according to an October Northwest Indiana Times analysis. (That compares to 27% for Indiana’s Republican Sen. Dick Lugar).”
morzer
Anyone want to bet that Mrs Bayh ain’t going to be the party nominee?
Tax Analyst
Haven’t had time to read the comments yet, but the thread tag is a winner.
Ash Can
Dengre’s latest post notwithstanding, I’m actually seeing some fairly interesting information and speculation on this at the GOS. First, as others here have already mentioned, there’s the fact that, if no valid papers are filed by the deadline, the party itself can choose a candidate. Jed Lewison points out that this works both ways, of course. The IN GOP is committed to running Hostetler and Coats. On the Dem side, since everyone assumed Bayh would be the candidate, nobody else mounted a campaign, with the sole exception of Tamyra d’Ippolito, who appears to be spectacularly inept. She has until noon tomorrow to gather another 1,000 or so signatures, and according to the second link the IN Dem network is not her friend in this effort (surprise). Assuming either 1) she can’t gather enough signatures in time or 2) if she does, enough of the signatures will be invalidated to DQ her, the situation becomes this: The IN GOP must go through a primary campaign, which presumably will involve GOP candidates saying uncomplimentary things about each other at best. The primary winner will then go up against a Dem candidate hand-picked by the state party for maximum effectiveness against the GOP candidate.
The theories that Bayh decided to drop out due to too much dirt on him emerging during the campaign and/or he decided to take the money and run make perfect sense. In light of what else is going on, as described above, the timing of his announcement, as well as him (and the IN State Dem party) wanting to keep it under his hat until the last minute, begin to make more sense as well. It begins to make sense that he would have reached this decision before this, and was going through the motions of doing things for his campaign in order not to tip his hand.
Regardless, though, it appears he just doesn’t like Harry Reid.
Ash Can
Link-embed fail. Bleah. You get the picture, though.
dww44
@TR:
One more very good reason why I cannot abide Andrea Mitchell. She carried water for the Republicans last week on the RM show and elsewhere, ginning up the non-controversy around the Christmas day non-bomber matter. Infuriatingly pathetic she was. It was so damn obvious what she was up to, stammering, hemming and hawing about how the administration called the Repubs on Christmas Day on unsecure lines, how the whole matter was mishandled by the administration, and then segued into how the administration mishandled the terrorist trials to be held in NY City. Rachel smiled through the whole thing and didn’t make any rejoinders, but it was obvious she knew what was up with Ms. Mitchell.
Ground for firing Ms. Mitchell, IMO, herabject failure to be professionally objective and factual., to be professional, period. But, it’ll never happen. She’s too well protected in that little protected circle she lives in. God, please, give us some real journalists.