Please dear God, NOT EVAN BAYH!!!

As many of you know, I was not a Hill fan during the primaries, because of her IWR and Kyl/Lieberman votes, but I'd take Hillary over EVAN MILQUE TOAST BAYH any day of the week. This man is about as exciting as a wet noodle and he is certainly not what I would call an attack dog which is what Obama needs at this point.

Obama is what we need for this country right now and if HILL is the way to get him to the Whitehouse, so be it. While I don't think that she is necessarialy the best attack dog, God knows her husband is. If he is going to pick someone that voted for the IWR, let it be either Biden or Hillary.

We have to trust Obama to make the choice he makes, even if our favorite is passed up.

I can barely stand Sam Nunn, but I understand why he might be on a list of considerations.

Evan Bayh isn't one of my favorite Great Democrats (his dad was, though...), but I could see Obama being hungry for Indiana and Bayh would help lift Jill Long Thompson's chances against incumbent gubernatorial Puke Mitch Daniels.

I'm not hogwild about a choice of Hillary Clinton but fully acknowledge that Obama could make that choice, or any of the others here and elsewhere, for his own reasons.

Politics is a crapshoot sometimes.

And whether he has been honest with us in his intentions for real CHANGE.

Bayh, Biden, Clinton, Edwards would all be a clear signal that change isn't what is motivating him.

There are PLENTY of highly qualified and exciting potential VP picks who don't represent the tired, old, finger in the wind politics. The politics of fear and seperation.

I have said over and over and over again that he is WAAAAY too radical for a VP spot.

Obama is one smart cookie. All this compromise stuff may just be to get elected

With a strongly Dem Congress he'll have LOTS of power to do what he wants.

He's far more liberal than any other nominee we've had since at least the early 70s...if not going back to FDR.

How is it that he gets attacked from the left so much? Don't people remember the Clintons were practically GOP, Gore another founding member of the DLC?

I mean, Obama isn't talking like Kucinich, but we'd have Hillary has our nominee if he had. Plenty of Dems are middle of the road and come from union households that only vote Dem out of tradition. You can't risk alienating that group.


Conservatism has controlled politics for the past 30 years: they've bought the gov't is satan idea, they think private schools are better than public, they think Unions are shakedown schemes, environmentalists are kooks, and Dems are why everything is so PC.


I know those are all nonsense, but they are generally true (hence generalities). They are the world in which Obama has to win this election. Why do you think the tire gauge is so appealing to conservatives??? They see it as environmentalism=quackery.

I am unsure about Obama... as he hasn't shown me anything at all yet. He hasn't stuck his neck out, but I don't hold that against him. I am willing to give him a chance UNLESS he shows me that he isn't serious about change and is willing to put the worst elements of the democratic party 1 heart beat away from the presidency.

If you look at his pro-choice voting, just an example, it couldn't be stronger. It was stronger than Clinton's (and just so I don't get accused of flame-baiting, a term a just learned last night, look at the context you rabid Clintonites, this is meant as a favorable comparison...as in he's even better than someone with a great record on the policy).

He's actually pro-affirmative action (though you won't get him to say so today).

A week before addressing AIPAC last year he publicly said the Palestinian people were oppressed (or something along those lines).


His 2004 speech is what made him and it's the best defense of progressive liberalism in years. The speech sounds like he's a moderate, but listen to the points and positions he's advocating.


He voted against the bankruptcy bill (literally drafted by the credit card companies--although Naderites still hit him for not opposing an amendment for this bill that would have capped interest rates at 30 percent which he thought was usurious--he still voted against the entire bill, not good enough for some). He did vote to limit (cap) punitive damages in medical malpractice cases...but not compensatory damages in IL legislature, a reasonable point of view, although you may disagree. He's for amending NAFTA although he gets hit on the left for not wanting to scrap it all together. He voted to move class action law suits to Federal Courts--this one I personally disagree with him on, but there is a reasonable case to be made that class action suits have been abused by law firms. We all know he voted in favor of extending the "Protect America Act" which is terrible legislation, and doesn't comport with his civil rights ideology (nonetheless appreciate how opposing it could have been used against him as "weak on terrorism") I hope he works to repeal it in his first 100 days.

Most of your post is filled with contradictions. He is for this, although he says he is against it. I know it sounds like X, but it is really Y. He voted for A, but he really believes B./ "He's actually pro-affirmative action (though you won't get him to say so today)." "The speech sounds like he's a moderate, but..." "We all know he voted in favor of extending the "Protect America Act" which is terrible legislation, and doesn't comport with his civil rights ideology..."

If he is too cowardly to present his REAL positions during an election, how the heck can I trust him to do it when he is being judged and attacked in office.

The selection of a politics as usual, war-mongering, biggoted VP will be the final straw for me and all the information I need to not support him or vote for him.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees.

Obama is far more liberal than most Presidents recently and we have to accept his choice. This is IT folks, if Obama does not win then the DLC takes over. PERIOD.

the DLC won't take over? :shrug:

Bayh is as DLC as they come. :puke:

I just trying to keep convincing myself that the Obama campaign knows something we don't......





edited for spelling not content.

At least Evan Bayh is FAR more likeable (especially to swing voters and in the Rust Belt/Midwest states), and brings something very crucial that both Hillary and Biden lack: solid economic/fiscal credentials as a very successful 2-term governor of Indiana.

for the reasons you noted, and others ...

not my favorite. not even in my top 100 of choices.

I don't consider him to be a solid Democrat.

Indiana may be in play...and he could be the difference there. Of course I have my doubts.

Indiana was once homebase for the KKK.

oh wait. Never mind. Dyanasties are okay now.

God's not making the choice.


Prayer's nice and all.... but appeal to the decision-maker himself.


;-)

but you're right!

And he'll pick a candidate with no drama attached.


Stick this in your mind if you plan on not voting for Obama if he picks Bayh.


If Obama loses, the DLC will gain far more control of the Democratic party. In a sense, we'll be pushed further right. That's why Nader is so wrong in running. He's making the Democratic party MORE Republican not less.

This is a constituency which liberal and progressives have long neglected.

"Sen Bayh is a past recipient Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson Award for Distinguished Service from the neoconservative security think tank JINSA"
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/03/evan_bayh_tough_but_smart.php

-------

"The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) is pleased to welcome Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) as an Honorary Co-Chairman. Bayh becomes the third U.S. Senator to join the committee after Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced their participation on January 28."The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) is pleased to welcome Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) as an Honorary Co-Chairman. Bayh becomes the third U.S. Senator to join the committee after Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced their participation on January 28.

The Committee is a neo-con group that was formed to propagandize the country into war. It boasted such illustrious neocon members as Bill Kristol, former CIA director James Woolsey, and even McCain senior foreign policy adviser and Chalabi-bamboozler Randy Scheunemann, whom Josh has been blogging about."

----

Perhaps he can even be a strong influence for more future wars.

Perhaps with someone like Evan Bayh, former Democrats like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz could feel at home in the Democratic Party again.

Just think how great it would be to have not one, but two parties dominated by neoconservative thinking.