The problems faced by Democrats in Senate elections this fall just got bigger, as Sen. Evan Bayh shocked the political world by announcing he isn’t running for re-election. He claims to be sick of partisanship in the Senate, though if Republicans win his seat in November, partisanship will simply get worse.
The challenge this poses for Democrats in Indiana and nationally isn’t simply that a popular incumbent in a marginal and traditionally conservative state who was sitting on $13 million in campaign cash is hanging it up. It’s timing: Bayh chose to take this step just four days before qualifying ends for 2010 candidates. (Two Republicans who are former members of Congress are already in the race). Since he appears to have kept his equivocation on running for re-election entirely to himself, there’s no Democratic successor waiting eagerly in the wings.
Early speculation revolves around U.S. Reps. Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill as potential Democratic candidates. But with so little time to make up their minds, nobody knows if a top-tier Democratic candidate will become available.
Expect Republican hyping of their chances (objectively still limited) of taking over the Senate this year to get amped up to a feral roar.
3 comments on “Hoosier Shocker”
ducdebrabant on
Apparently all his hatred is for the liberal wing, especially the bloggers. That’s been the problem with him all along: the daily egregious conduct of the Republicans is less of a problem than the people who are NOT his enablers in his daily, progressively more weasely, refusal to confront it head on. Now that he can’t float serenely in the middle of the pool, never diving, never wading, he doesn’t want to be there anymore. WAS he ever a Senator? What did he ever do? His father was a wonderful Senator, and lost his seat over his support for abortion rights. Evan learned that one lesson from his father, and that is ALL he learned.
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’sbeen all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
Apparently all his hatred is for the liberal wing, especially the bloggers. That’s been the problem with him all along: the daily egregious conduct of the Republicans is less of a problem than the people who are NOT his enablers in his daily, progressively more weasely, refusal to confront it head on. Now that he can’t float serenely in the middle of the pool, never diving, never wading, he doesn’t want to be there anymore. WAS he ever a Senator? What did he ever do? His father was a wonderful Senator, and lost his seat over his support for abortion rights. Evan learned that one lesson from his father, and that is ALL he learned.
I can’t see how this hurts. He wasn’t a reliable vote for progresive change. He was never a reliable vote to invoke cloture. Let him go.
(Sigh)Could this get any worse?