Senator Bayh
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 2/16/10 @ 5:47 pm - Filed Under 2010 National Elections, Featured, Local Politics, National Politics, State Politics
Senator Evan Bayh, in a news conference just before the filing deadline to run in the primary, announced his retirment from the US Senate.
Reaction from Indiana Democrats has been interesting to say the least. Senator Bayh’s announcement appears to be a shock to the entire Democratic establishment. Senator Bayh kept his retirement secret and shocked even his own campaign manager.
Nadia Bashir called me today and I did a short interview with her in my office; part of which will be aired on WFFT-TV tonight on their 10 PM news on channel 55.
I have several observations about this retirement:
1. His last minute retirement is a slap in the face to The Indiana Democratic Party and to Indiana voters. Now the Democrats will have to appoint a candidate and there will not be a Demcoratic primary. That is shameful.
2. I think it is very likely that Evan Bayh would have won re-election. I personally think the only Indiana Republican that could have beat Senator Bayh was Mike Pence. Unfortunately Mike Pence decided not to challenge Bayh.
3. I now think the Republicans will win a second Indiana Senate seat in November 2010.
4. I think Bayh’s “retirement” will serve to energize the Indiana Republican Party and will tend to hurt the morale of the Indiana Democratic Party. I think whoever wins the Republican Primary for US Senate will win in November fairly easily.
Mike Sylvester
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It sounds like Bayh has become pretty fed up with politics in general:
“But Bayh had apparently become increasingly frustrated in the Senate. In this morning’s interview he noted that just two weeks ago, Republicans who had co-sponsored a bill with him to rein in the deficit turned around and voted against it for purely political reasons.”
“Bayh blamed the current atmosphere of intense partisanship on the need for senators to constantly campaign to be reelected to another six-year term. Citing his father, a popular liberal senator in the ’60s and ’70s, he noted that “back in the day they used to have the saying: ‘You campaign for 2 years and you legislate for 4.’ Now you campaign for 6!” He noted that the need for constant fundraising made it nearly impossible to focus on passing legislation.”
I’d say it’s anything but a slap in the face.
Had Bayh ran and lost, it would have hurt his chances for a higher office, (president or return to governor) and given his relatively comfortable position, I don’t think he was ready to take that blow.
I personally think the democrats are stupid like a fox on this one. By declaring his retirement the day before signatures were due, it guaranteed the democrats the opportunity to hand pick their candidate. Names being tossed around include Brad Ellsworth, Baron Hill and Joe Donnelly as possible senatorial candidates.
The one candidate they had, Tamyra D’Ippolito from Bloomington spent the last 24 hours lying to her supporters, (if she had any) telling them and the news media this morning she had the required 4500 signatures. In the end, she had a total of 118. She was no threat and the democrats knew that. Now they can hand pick the candidate.
Rumor has it, (and it’s nothing more than that at this point) that Rahm Emanuel was in Indiana around 10 days ago and met with Baron Hill.
This is nothing more than Chicago politics, Hoosier style, IMHO.
We all know that Senator Bayh had to step down and run for Governor of Indiana, not allowing a Democratic primary in Indiana because of the partisanship in Washington D.C. He did it because of the Republicans. Of course, John Mellencamp could throw a wrinkle into this discussion because his music is relatively good. The word Zoo comes to mind when I think about the state of politics in our country. Let’s just spend some more money and maybe this will all go away like a bad dream.