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Why Bayh Is Quitting the Senate
WSJ Online ^ | 2-16-10 | John Fund

Posted on 02/16/2010 8:37:28 PM PST by chickadee

"Mr. Bayh knows something about high-water political floods. As a 24-year-old law student he helped run his father's 1980 Senate re-election and saw him go down to defeat under the Reagan landslide. In 1994, Mr. Bayh was governor of Indiana and thankful he wasn't before the voters when they revolted against Bill Clinton. "Every 14 or 16 years we seem to have to relearn this lesson," Mr. Bayh said. "I do have a sense of deja vu, and the movie doesn't have a happy ending."

He isn't the first observer to note the misfortune that befalls modern Democrats when they gain control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. After Jimmy Carter won the White House, Ronald Reagan assembled a group of his former aides in Los Angeles in early 1977 for a pep talk about how the GOP loss would only be temporary if they learned from the party's mistakes and returned to first principles. He quoted from a John Dryden ballad memorized as a youth: "I'm a little wounded, but I am not slain. I will lay me down for to bleed a while. Then I'll rise and fight again."

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Indiana
KEYWORDS: 111th; bayh; democrats; evanbayh; johnfund; liberals
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"But governing as liberals meant Democrats undermined the trust voters placed in them. They also enacted policies that increased economic uncertainty and retarded job creation. "When liberalism fails, people notice. They may even protest," Reagan told his aides, pointing to California's nascent Proposition 13 tax revolt—the "Tea Party" of its day. "And it's then they'll listen to you again if you have a clear set of ideas based on sound principle."

Let us hope that history repeats itself.

1 posted on 02/16/2010 8:37:28 PM PST by chickadee
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To: chickadee

I think most of the analysis of this is giving Bayh a lot of credit for “knowing something” that hardly anyone else knows — and there is no evidence that he knows anything at all much less something no one else does. See what I’m sayin’?


2 posted on 02/16/2010 8:40:42 PM PST by PaleoBob
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To: chickadee

Besides the 13 million, and from some of his remarks, he wants to run for the big office. I also think he doesn’t want to be part of the losing team.


3 posted on 02/16/2010 8:41:14 PM PST by ABQHispConservative (A good Blue Dog is an unelected Blue Dog. Ditto Rino's!)
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To: chickadee

They are running scared that is for sure!


4 posted on 02/16/2010 8:41:19 PM PST by Names Ash Housewares
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To: ABQHispConservative

If he doesn’t want to be part of the losing team he could switch parties.


5 posted on 02/16/2010 8:42:56 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: chickadee
To make a long story short, the socialists are sneaky, secret, lying cheats until they achieve Congress and President. Then their true colors are manifest for all to see.

They go down in flames and start to fake it all over again.

yitbos

6 posted on 02/16/2010 8:43:36 PM PST by bruinbirdman ("Those who control language control minds.")
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To: Names Ash Housewares

john mellencamp is thinking of running in Bayh’s place


7 posted on 02/16/2010 8:44:32 PM PST by RummyChick
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To: PaleoBob

The reason the leftists hated Quayle with such a purple passion was that he defeated Birch Bayh in 1980.


8 posted on 02/16/2010 8:47:33 PM PST by Arthur McGowan (In Edward Kennedy's America, federal funding of brothels is a right, not a privilege.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I think Bayh is old school Democrat - you know, the Democrat of our parents/grandparents. Back then, Democrats stood for the working man, not for government unions, trial lawyers, grievance groups and truckloads of dead babies.


9 posted on 02/16/2010 8:49:33 PM PST by chickadee
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To: RummyChick
john mellencamp is thinking of running in Bayh’s place

LOL! Mellonhead would be as big a joke as Franken.

Bayh, Bayh SCUMBAG!

10 posted on 02/16/2010 8:51:07 PM PST by PGalt
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To: chickadee

Bayh left angry - he announced his retirement without allowing his party to be able to have a viable primary contest for his replacement and didn’t warn any of the ‘rat leaders of his intentions - he was probably frustrated and resentful about some of the votes he’d been forced into making - such as for healthcare and the “stimulus” - in support of his party......


11 posted on 02/16/2010 8:52:16 PM PST by Intolerant in NJ
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: HiTech RedNeck

One Specter was enough. We don’t need another. We have enough rinos as it is.


13 posted on 02/16/2010 8:55:09 PM PST by ABQHispConservative (A good Blue Dog is an unelected Blue Dog. Ditto Rino's!)
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: chickadee
The biggest fallacy is that everyone labels Bayh a moderate. All you have to do is look up this stone cold liberals voting record.
15 posted on 02/16/2010 8:55:37 PM PST by JohnLongIsland ( schmuckie schucks)
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To: chickadee

Kinda like running from Leatherface and his chainsaw. Wise move.

Others (like Boxer) will just stand there and get chopped up in November.


16 posted on 02/16/2010 8:58:18 PM PST by TruthHound ("He who does not punish evil commands it to be done." --Leonardo da Vinci)
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To: RummyChick

Smokestack Johnny is wheezing already!


18 posted on 02/16/2010 9:00:28 PM PST by InvisibleChurch (happily replying to threads without reading the articles since 2002)
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To: chickadee
"Every 14 or 16 years we seem to have to relearn this lesson"...

So, Bayh hadn't learned the lesson when he voted against Roberts and Alioto, and for Porkulus and Obamacare, but he just learned it now?

19 posted on 02/16/2010 9:00:36 PM PST by Plutarch
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To: RummyChick

John Lemon Melon Cougarcamp is too busy sucking on people’s chili dogs behind the Tastee Freeze to be running for US Senate.


20 posted on 02/16/2010 9:01:37 PM PST by The KG9 Kid
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