Bayh, bayh, bayh, bayh........
Posted on 05/18/2005 7:20:42 AM PDT by areafiftyone
Sen. Evan Bayh’s (D-Ind.) inner circle of advisers stresses two points about the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries: Their man’s record as a popular two-term governor and his ability to appeal to voters in the “reddest of red” states.
President Bush won a handful of states in 2004 — Wyoming with 72 percent of the vote, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota and Alaska — by wider margins than he won Indiana, but Bayh’s state was still one of the president’s strongest supporters. Bush carried it with 60 percent of the vote in 2004, while Bayh secured 62 percent of the Hoosier state’s vote.
His supporters cite that as evidence of his ability to attract centrists and conservatives at a time when Democrats in Washington are wrestling with the question of how to broaden their appeal in the aftermath of a bitterly disappointing election last November.
Anita Dunn, Bayh’s media consultant, said the senator won nearly 40 percent of the votes of self-identified evangelical voters, whom Bush’s political team targeted in its get-out-the-vote efforts last year.
When Bayh was first elected governor in 1988, he became the youngest governor in the country and was first Democrat to win the state in 20 years — evidence, his advisers now say, that he can do what many party colleagues say is nearly impossible for a Democratic presidential candidate: win in a solidly Republican state.
The GOP controls Indiana’s governor’s mansion, both chambers of the state Legislature and seven of nine seats in the U.S. House. But Bayh enjoys a 70 percent approval rating.
One Democratic insider said Bayh and former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), the party’s veep nominee last year, are the most active probable candidates for 2008.
A recent focus group in Iowa conducted by Bayh’s allies showed that likely caucus voters there would be willing to support a lesser-known presidential candidate running, National Journal’s Hotline reported.
But a nationwide Marist College poll last month showed that Bayh attracted less than 1 percent support from likely Democratic voters in a hypothetical primary.
He will not say yet whether he’s running for president, but his pollster, Paul Maslin, said, “at this stage of the game, what I’ve told people is that he’s doing everything possible to prepare himself for a possible run for the presidency.
“He has to make a decision by the end of next year.”
At the beginning of this year, Bayh hired Maslin, who worked on former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, and Steve Bouchard, who last year ran America Coming Together’s operations in Ohio, to operate his leadership political action committee.
Bayh’s undeclared campaign stresses his accomplishment as governor, a record that draws comparisons to former Arkansas Gov. and President Bill Clinton.
During the late ’80s and early to mid-’90s, Bayh balanced the state budget, and he left office with a $1 billion surplus, his former gubernatorial aides say. Bayh did not sign a significant tax increase, and he helped cut middle class taxes. He worked with Republicans to pass a major education initiative, which provided college scholarships to Indiana students who graduated from high school with good grades and stayed drug-free, his supporters point out.
Bayh’s allies credit the so-called Twenty-first Century Scholars Program with boosting the number of students who matriculated to college after graduating from high school.
Bayh, like Clinton, believes fiscal discipline is the necessary condition for enacting a liberal — or, as Bayh prefers to call it, progressive — legislative agenda.
“I think there is a similar philosophy of getting your economic house in order and then doing things to create opportunity for the next generation,” Dunn said. Perhaps that is not surprising, given that Bayh for the past four years has chaired the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist Democratic leadership organization that played a prominent role in Clinton’s 1992 White House campaign.
Like Clinton, longtime friends, observers and even former opponents describe Bayh as very intelligent and very hardworking. Doug Richardson, who covered Bayh for several years as a statehouse correspondent for the Associated Press, recalled that Bayh “would pretty much write his State of the State addresses line for line and rehearse them until almost 10 minutes before he was to go” in front of an audience.
Richardson also remembers that the first time that Bayh signed an execution order “he went through all the records himself” and wrote the convict’s attorney a “10- or 15-page explanation for why he was going to let it go through,” a level of personal attention that Richardson said is rare for other governors.
Bill Moreau, an Indianapolis attorney who served as Bayh’s chief of staff during his first gubernatorial term, said Bayh immersed himself in complex policy details, such as labyrinthine regulations governing Indiana’s water standards and educational funding.
“We could rely on the fact that if we got homework to the governor by 5 o’clock in the afternoon, by the next morning we would have a reaction,” Moreau said, “and woe unto you if you attached an article that you hadn’t read yourself or read in detail. The next day he would have 50 questions about the thing you submitted to him.”
Since being elected to the Senate in 1998, Bayh has taken seats on the Armed Services Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence. Recently, he has spearheaded the fight to pay for more armored Humvees, successfully attaching to the military supplemental appropriations bill last month an amendment providing $213 million for additional “up-armored” vehicles. Bayh voted for the invasion of Iraq, and, to the relief of future supporters, also for the subsequent $87 billion bill funding it.
Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the Cook Political Report, said the national-security expertise Bayh has acquired in the Senate complements the strong domestic-policy record he compiled as governor.
Bayh’s well-rounded résumé and his popularity in a red state prompt many Democratic insiders to say he is a “great candidate on paper.” But that description is used so often that it sometimes sounds like a backhanded compliment.
The senator’s wonkishness and “hands on” approach to complex policy problems — his tendency to “micromanage” — could draw comparisons to former Vice President Al Gore, as well as Clinton, especially considering Bayh’s reputation for being stiff.
“He can somehow be personable, wooden and awkward at the same time,” political analyst Stuart Rothenberg wrote in a recent column that prompted a few reporters on Capitol Hill to chuckle knowingly.
Duffy, the Cook Political Report analyst, said, “No one would ever accuse Evan Bayh of exuding charisma.”
“In a setting of six or eight people sitting around a table, he’s smart and engaging,” said Duffy, who has had dinner with Bayh. “When he gets up to the podium, he’s not somebody who just lights up a crowd.”
Paul Helmke, Fort Wayne’s former Republican mayor, who ran against Bayh for Senate in 1998, said it was almost impossible to ruffle him: “He comes across as a little too perfect. You almost had the feeling of wanting to slice through his forearm to see if there were wires or skin, blood and bones.
“It was hard to get him flustered on any issue. I think that was part of a strategy; when there’s something controversial, it’s better to be wooden than a lightning rod.”
Moreau, Bayh’s former chief of staff, who has known Bayh since his father, former Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.), ran for president in 1976, hotly disputes that his friend is boring.
“Those of us who know him, and that means millions and millions of Hoosiers, would never call him bland,” Moreau said.
But Richard Gordon, a member of Bayh’s kitchen cabinet who also first met the lawmaker during his father’s White House campaign, said he can understand why observers see Bayh has unexciting.
“That’s all very fair,” he said, “He’s a very studious type of person, he’s very intellectual, a very smart guy. Sometimes I feel in that being very thoughtful it is not the type of thing where you’re going to jump out of your seat yelling and screaming.”
But, Gordon said, Bayh can connect with audiences: “What I’ve noticed about Bayh is that people are listening to him attentively. You can hear a pin drop. They’re with him. They don’t want a showman. They don’t want someone to put on a play for them. They want someone to touch them.”
A bit Clinton, and a bit Gore? Why would anyone admit to being a liar and a loser too?
Count me as one Hoosier who didn't vote for him. The leftists would probably like him just fine. Once he got to D.C., he defintely turned more liberal. The elderly in Indiana love him just fine. I fear that he could win the White House. He has those Clinto qualities.
Bayh voted against Condi Rice as Secretary of State. He's to the left of Paul Wellstone.
That's what we need. A sex-crazed prevaricator with the keys to the Internet. Hide the women !!!!
So the lies have started. IMO, he would have a hard time winning his own state.
So he's insane too? Hides it pretty well.
They're all welcome to hide out at my place! :o)
Bayh, bayh, bayh, bayh........
He's also voted consistently with the worst of the Democrats.
He's running.
A wooden woody?????
Bayh's oratory is so dull that it makes Gore sound great.
He has been pretty good about pulling the wool over their eyes.
LOL
A little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. The Donnie and Marie candidate.
Great, I'll be sending Monica and Paula over post-haste. You better run, dude.
If Hillary wins, my wife's Pug could beat her.
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