Posted on 02/20/2010 3:07:05 PM PST by reaganaut1
Some of us always suspected that Evan Bayh was a Tough Chooser, and he proved us right this month when, with a disdainful flourish, he announced he wouldn’t try to get himself reelected senator from Indiana. He had been giving off signals for a long time, talking about the “tough choices” that his fellow legislators refuse to make to solve the government’s fiscal problems, without once mentioning what those tough choices entail or, for that matter, making a tough choice himself.
Bayh did this most recently on February 3, when President Obama took questions for what seemed like hours at a meeting of Democratic senators. Bayh was the last senator to seize the microphone. He asked one of those questions that isn’t really a question, the kind that carefully combed TV reporters ask at presidential press conferences—ten pounds of peroration and two ounces of query. Ostensibly the subject was the perennial favorite of Tough Choosers, “this issue of the deficit and rising debt.”
He went on for two and a half minutes. “The public and average citizen,” Bayh said, “understand in the long run this is unsustainable.” Therefore, “we’ve got a job to do.” But would we have the courage to do it, Bayh wondered? “Are we willing to make some of the tough decisions to actually head this country in a better direction?”
In a perfect world the president would have gazed at Evan Bayh for a moment and said, “No,” then got in his limo and gone home to take a nap. Instead President Obama responded as he always does to these nonquestions, like a circus cannon blowing out gushers of confetti, clouding the air with the sparkly bits of verbiage that dazzle his admirers.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
As a governor, Bayh was actually OK (for a democrat, of course). He was fiscally responsible; he didn’t raise taxes and kept spending in check for the most part. The state didn’t go to hell until his senile Lt. Gov. Frank O’Bannon followed him.
The fact is that Bayh never had to make a really hard choice as Indiana Governor. When he went to the Senate, he was truly out of his depth. Yes, he was popular because he was perceived in this red state as a “moderate.” And perception is reality in politics.
As this article points out, Bayh just didn’t have the spine or, I suppose, the intellect, to frame a coherent set of political values and then stick to them. His resignation was really a political suicide by a weak man who didn’t belong where he was. And we all know that suicide is “the coward’s way out.”
Or as I like to say, thanks to his dad, he was born on 3rd base but thought he’d hit a triple.
“Yes, he was popular because he was perceived in this red state as a “moderate.” And perception is reality in politics.”
You can only hang on to that false perception with a GOP Senate. A lot of faux moderate Dems survived and prospered with a GOP majority, in effect making it a centrist (and never consrvative) Congress ... one that spent too much but didnt go socialist-crazy.
Then the Democrats took over, and spending went up by double-digits every year and plans were hatched to regulate business up the wazoo, raise taxes and takeover energy and healthcare.
BAYH WENT ALONG WITH MOST OF IT. This is key. If he was a real moderate, he would have voted “NO” on Obamacare. He didn’t... He was a shill and Obama-follower all along, a liberal not a moderate.
These liberals have been exposed and they are not fit for re-election. Bayh saw the difficulty awaiting him and took the easy way out.
And so, per Michelle Malkin, Bayh is identified as “leaning toward supporting reconciliation” in this sneaky deal Reid and Pelosi are doing in the next two days... meanwhile Bayh’s wife on the board of Eli Lilly drugmaker- delivers her husband’s graft to Eli Lilly, big pharma. Yeah, Bayh is some kind of moderate... a political brat just like Gore. Incidentally, his daddy is still alive, ole Birch Bayh... major crook. Real sweet plan, won’t run for the lack of “bipartisanship” and commits ultimate partisanship by reconciliation of Obama’s single payer plan. The man is a RAT! Indianans... CALL HIM ON IT!!
That’s where I kind of disagree on Bayh. He had a chance to run as a moderate but govern as a liberal when he was governor. He didn’t. Instead, he was just kind of a “go along-get along” guy. In other words, he wasn’t really liberal, he was just weak.
When he got to the Senate, for a while things went the same way, until Dingy Harry’s crowd took over. Then the liberal express started rolling, and Bayh got rolled right along with it. Whether or not he truly believed in what he was voting for is, I guess, irrelevant. In my opinion, he just didn’t have the character to stand up to the leadership and be vote independently. If he’d really been a liberal all along, he’d run for re-election. By all accounts, he had the money, the organization and the knowledge that it was a safe seat.
But he wimped out.
Washington changes people.
“Whether or not he truly believed in what he was voting for is, I guess, irrelevant.”
Correct. It doesnt matter what’s in his soul. If he votes liberal, he *is* liberal.
“If he’d really been a liberal all along, he’d run for re-election. By all accounts, he had the money, the organization and the knowledge that it was a safe seat.”
You are wrong there. He was on track to defeat or at least a very tough tough race, just like Blanche Lincoln.... these votes are 60 oppose / 40 support type votes. Any candidate with a few million to spend could have chewed them up over it and they’d be goners.
THAT is the message of Scott Brown. Healthcare won a Republican his race in Massachusetts.
I just read the entire article and unless I missed something Bayh voted for all of IT.
Bashed Bush on the Iraq war, accused Bush/ Cheney of getting soldiers killed. He'scum. And that's my opinion.
Of course it’s also my opinion Bayh is no worse or better than any and all democrats, they’re all scum.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.