He didn’t lose the election. He opted not to run after he won the nomination, as I recall.
Well, no, I don’t live in Indiana. Don’t know how you figured that one out, but you got me there, pal…
…However…I do live in the United States, and even as someone who would very much like to see a Democratic majority in the Senate next year, I believe we need someone like Evan Bayh kneecapping a progressive agenda like a fish needs a bicycle. Because we’ve seen this movie before. If you’re a Republican and you want some “bi-partisan” cover, Bayh’s your man…er, dog. As in Blue Dog. Tax cut for the 1%? He’s on it. Restrictive abortion funding amendment? Voted for it. The kind of Democrat Roger Ailes wants on Fox News? That’s Bayh. And last I recall, he left the Senate because he didn’t like it there anymore, and did so in such a way to maximally screw Democrats.
So, to sum up…I don’t really care that you don’t care. Because lots of other people, in and out of Indiana, do.
1 Like
My bad, I thought he lost in the 2010 tea bagger nonsense.
However, I did find this tidbit.
“Evan Bayh to exit Senate he no longer loves…”
Do we really want to return to the Blue Dog nonsense???
From 2009:
This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) discussed the creation of a new group of “moderate” Democratic senators whose goal is to “restrain the influence of party liberals.” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell explained the implications of Bayh’s new group, saying “this is the group that will control the outcome politically on what can pass on the Senate floor.”
Bayh explained that his office would be issuing a press release detailing the group and its 15 inaugural members.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/03/18/36891/bayhs-four-secret-sens/
Second the credit union. I had a bank account for six months when I started working, then switched to a credit union when I wanted to take out a small ($500) car loan. The bank refused me, but the credit union let me take it out on my signature and had lower interest rates. I’ve never had any other account since. They’ve held my mortgages, my car loans, and my education loans. I’ve never paid for checking and they know me by name.
1 Like
Keep always in mind that in 2018 there is a strong possibility that the Democrats will lose up to five Senate seats, so they need to really, really pile on this time to build up a buffer. There were nine flippable seats (by which I mean the Democratic candidate is ahead or no more than 5% behind today); now there are ten. The Dems really need at least nine so as to have a bombproof majority for 2018 and on.
2 Likes
Here is how they stood as of yesterday (haven’t done today’s update yet). The numbers with decimal points are from Pollster, probably the best source; numbers without decimal points are from unpolled or underpolled states thus not on Pollster. All links are to the Democrat’s “ActBlue” fundraising page. The list is in order of current polling favorability (excepting, of course, Bayh).
- Russ Feingold, Wisconsin
50.3 - 39.9 = +10.4%
- Tammy Duckworth, Illinois
43 - 40 = +3.0% [only one even moderately recent poll, late March]
- Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire
44.4 - 42.8 = -1.6%
- Ted Strickland, Ohio
39.7 - 42.5 = -2.8%
- Patrick Murphy, Florida
43.0 - 39.9 = -3.1% [Murphy/Rubio matchup: primaries on 30 August]
- Deborah Ross, North Carolina
36.7 - 39.9 = -3.2%
- Patty Judge, Iowa
42 - 46 = -4% [using RealClearPolitics data]
- Katie McGinty, Pennsylvania
38.8 - 42.9 = -4.1%
- Ann Kirkpatrick, Arizona
36.7- 41.7 = -5.0% [McCain/Kirkpatrick matchup: primaries on 30 August]
- Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada
41 - 46 = -5% [only one recent poll]
sufficient to withstand 2018 ↑
dark-horse "extra" possibles ↓
- Jason Kander, Missouri
37 - 44 = -7% [latest poll, but only from March]
- Jim Barksdale, Georgia
35 - 47 = -12% [latest poll only, late May]
- Evan Bayh, Indiana
no polls yet
EDIT ADD: The five Blue seats at high risk in 2018 are in Indiana (the other Indiana seat), Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia.
In my opinion, a Senate race currently no worse than a 5% spread is definitely in play, because the Blue wave for 2016 has hardly begun to ramp up yet. Let’s wait till middle or late August to really see what’s what.
3 Likes
I read a piece earlier today that basically opined that Pence wanted to be VP because it gives him the loyalty card to play in 2020…basically, “Hillary is horrible, but where were YOU when we needed to run against her?”
I am not entirely sure I buy that as valid reasoning…hitching your wagon to the disaster that is the Trump campaign seems to me to have many more negatives to a political career, than anything the loyalty argument can buy.
But…avoiding having to run a losing campaign for re-election? That sweetens the pot quite a bit.
However, trying to be Trump’s VP candidate and keeping distance from what he says…well, I am not sure Pence can do those type of dance moves. I am not sure Fed Astaire could do those type of dance moves.
1 Like
Mike Pence proved he can’t even slow-dance–
the way he mangled the Religious Freedom Restoration Act legislation-- and aftermath.
A mindless ®obot.
jw1
1 Like
The conservative Rubin agrees Bayh would be electable.
People like this are why the Democrats keep losing seats in Congress and at the state level. Why vote for a fake Republican like this, when you can choose the real thing?
Ohhhhh Wiiiiiiilbuuuuuur-- iiiiiiit’s Iiiiiiiiindiaaaaaaaaana!
jw1
If this guy is elected to the Senate, he and the other weasels like Mark Warner will spend their time holding the rest of the Democratic Party in the Senate hostage. Of course, the party leadership will bend over backwards for them, because that’s what they always do, and tell the rest of the Democrats that they will have to recreate that one scene from Salo, because it is important to protect Bayh’s seat, rather than actually accomplish anything worthwhile. So, get ready for a lot of talk about deficit reduction and cutting taxes and passing the TPP, TTIP, and TISA, and of course cutting Social Security and Medicare, because that’s what Bayh and the rest of these corporate Democrats want to do.
Or, the Democratic Party could actually seize the moment, and fight it out for what they claim are their principles. What are the chances of that happening?
Fine with me. First he is a Democrat - and second he is a Democrat. I don’t need purity and I want the Senate to be blue.
I am in Missouri and Jason Kander has generated a lot of support and money - He might be a dark horse but Blunt is not very popular.
Yes his numbers were in the tank and his fundraising numbers were even worse (like his fundraising was abysmal, the second he had to report just how bad, national dems abandoned him, running as far as they could). Any hope at just making this seat competitive with Hill as the candidate (not even talking about actually winning) was going to require a significant sum of money and Hill showed just nowhere near the kind of ability to raise the needed money to be competitive. If that wasn’t bad enough, Hills lackluster fundraising and tanking polling sent outside groups, outside money & allied super pacs running for the hills too. So there was just no backup cover to come to his aid… If he stayed in we were looking at a blowout GOP win, everyone in the party, including Hill could see this.
And that was frustrating because this was a seat national democratic leaders and strategist felt could be competitive and even go our way under the right circumstances (a la 2012 when dems surprised & picked up the other senate seat in the state). This being a presidential year was the 1st key ingredient, due to the more favorable electorate that shows up. Trumps ascendancy to the top of the GOP ticket was another potential coup for democrats. The missing pieces however were a weak GOP candidate and strong Democratic candidate when dems failed to get a truly top tier candidate while republicans avoided their mistake last time of nominating a far far right tea party nut.
Those calculations all change with Bayh being the democratic nominee. Democrats wanted him as the candidate from the start as he’s perhaps the ONLY Indiana democrat right now who could win the race without having to rely on the republican candidate screwing up. The race very possibly goes from “safe GOP” to “leans democratic” or even “likely democratic.” Democrats behind the scenes had been working on changing Bayh’s mind for months after multiple internal and private polls showed he would enter the race with a double digit lead should he be the dem nominee. That taken with his hug war chest of nearly $10 million that he’s been sitting on since 2010 made him a very viable candidate. And one that would totally flip the script on the battle for the senate after dems had bad news in late June with Rubio entering the Florida race, which had been looking increasingly like it would be democrats to loose.
Bottom line is Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid want to regain the senate BADLY (Reid to leave returning dems to the majority and Schumer to be leader of the majority). Hill was going nowhere and essentially everyone had written off Indiana as a pickup opportunity, this suddenly changes that. The GOP will almost certainly have to send in a ton of money from the NRSC and super pacs since Bayh’s cash on hand is dramatically higher than Young’s (which will have the bonus of diverting republican money from other races we’ve targeted). And since Bayh’s funding total is so strong right from the start, dems likely won’t need to send in a lot of money from the DSCC or outside super pacs (thus preserving more money for our other candidates in close races). Believe me I get that Bayh is far from a perfect progressive (but let’s not forget he was one of the final 3 people Obama was considering for VP) but all that said this is very good news for democrats and significantly increases our chance of winning the senate majority (or add to the majority… Let’s not forget we have a tough map in 2018, so we’ll need all the extra padding we can get if we want to retain the chamber for more than 2 years).
1 Like
Let’s see where we are following the summer and fall of Trump. I like our chances. We did it in 2008, but I understand this is different in a number of ways.
I’m not naive. I’m optimistic that Trump will destroy mainstream GOP turnout. I know many white collar Republicans who were happy to vote for Romney. So far, zero are voting for Trump.
We’ll see. But I don’t see the point of pissing on the fire before either convention.
Well, really you have to look no further than Evan Bayh for our lack of a deep bench. For a man who was arguably one of the most successful Democratic politicians in this state of all time ( two term Gov, Indiana sec. of state, and two term Senator) he did jack-shit to raise the profile of the Democratic Party. The $10 million dollar untouched war chest ought to tell how generous he was about reaching a hand back to lift up the next person…
1 Like
Thank you danf.
Plus he left the senate when dems needed him most, 2010. In a year he would have certainly won.
Now it’s like…I’m baaaaccck…
Hey, I’ll take it though. Better than a bagger. What a sad statement that is, I’m a right?
1 Like