Some sobering statistics about Evan Bayh

Bayh was re-elected governor of Indiana in 1992 with the highest percentage of the vote in a statewide election in modern Indiana history.

By the end of his second term, Bayh had an approval rating of nearly 80 percent.

Bayh was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998. He won with 64% of the vote, the largest victory margin ever by a Democrat in a U.S. Senate race in Indiana.

Evan Bayh is a winner.

Yes, I know you don't like him. Regardless of who Obama picks, we're fortunate he isn't taking the advice of DU.

Obama's running for a national office. Bayh does nothing for him anywhere else. If Bayh is so respected in Indiana, then he can deliver Indiana by supporting and campaigning there for Obama. The VP needs to be a winner on a national scale. Bayh just does not qualify, and he pisses off quite a large chunk of the base.

Neither is DailyKos or TalkingPointsMemo.

The Democratic party's base includes not just the political junkies who know what FISA and IWR stand for, but lots of middle and working class people with pretty centrist political views (e.g., the kind of people in Ohio and Pennsylvania who voted for Hillary Clinton). Someone like Bayh would play pretty well with those folks -- and we need them.

the Clinton supporters in PA, OH, and WV are too ignorant to be upset at Bayh, and therefore he's a good candidate? Good grief. Since when do we say that "people are too dumb to realize that he sucks" is a valuable quality in a VP candidate.

As for your other assertion--it's ridiculous, the people who keep going on about who's going to "play well" to "Clinton's voters." Nobody really seems to get it. If the VP isn't Clinton, her voters really aren't going to care. Most of them have already switched their support to Obama, because he's the only Dem left, and his VP choice doesn't matter much either way to them. The small percentage who refuse to support him now, aren't going to change their minds just because he nominates some boring VP they're barely heard of, who happens to be "centrist." They wanted Clinton, they didn't get her. That bird has already flown.

The base we need to be worried about even more is the left wing. Obama's made too many concessions to the right lately; he doesn't have the political capital to nominate a VP that's even further right than he is--at least, not without that VP bringing something else fantastic to the table, like Clark's military experience, or Kaine's ability to help turn Virginia blue in the general.

Bayh doesn't excite the working class base, and the left-wing base actively despises him. He's a weak choice, and I don't believe for a moment that Obama doesn't realize that too.

I mean that in 2003 they -- like Bayh, Clinton, and Biden -- bought the argument for the Iraq war. Today, even if they've come to view Iraq as a mistake (which nearly all of them have), they're not so upset about the buildup to war that anyone who voted yes is a pariah. And they certainly don't spend enough time on the Internet arguing about the war that an acronym like IWR is known to them.

What I really mean is that they're not "progressives". Being a Democrat does not necessarily mean progressive, and in most cases it doesn't.

And I'm not arguing that Bayh will appeal to PUMAs. But the great majority of the people who voted for Hillary are not Clinton diehards. They're just traditional Democrats (union people, Hispanics, teachers, etcetera). They are not loyal only to Clinton. But they are attracted by middle-of-the-road candidates like Clinton, such as Bayh.

ETA: "The base we need to be worried about even more is the left wing." This is ridiculous. There are not enough votes here to worry about.

If he's such a loser everywhere else, why is Obama considering him?

No, he pisses off a tiny bit of the base. Which is a plus.

Other than Obama's vague "all options are on the table" speeches, I haven't seen any evidence that Obama is seriously considering Bayh. A visit to Indiana doesn't constitute "evidence", to me. I tend to disbelieve the mainstream media hype, and the "breathless news" from "inside sources", because I generally think that the media is full of it.

The only VP I think Obama has shown serious interest in so far is Kaine. Not that I like Kaine. He's just a bit less awful than some of the other choices.

jumping to huge geographical conclusions!

He won his elections largely on daddy's name and ran against a number of very weak Republican challengers. He's a lightweight as far as I'm concerned and I don't really believe he will help us at all in the rust belt.

during the primaries. Even though she pulled out the win people expected her to have a better showing and Bayh was a large supporter of her. So he showed he doesn't really sway the masses THAT much with his own popularity transferring over to another.

He's more of a centrist, and sort of a stable quantity that an Obama campaign would do well with. Plus if he delivers us IN, that along with Iowa, or Colorado, or New Mexico and Nevada, is a win.

Just because he's a Democrat doesn't mean shit.

If you go to fivethirtyeight.com they'll show you that actually Evan Bayh is pretty liberal for a conservative state like Indiana...

will get you called "divisive".


Oh...wait.... that's only if you post about one particular candidate.


nevermind.

Indiana is extremely close as is, which means Bayh might be all Obama needs to push Indiana from barely red to barely blue.

The significance of this?

If Obama were to win all of Kerry's states and only flipped Iowa and Indiana, he wins the presidency.

It would certainly make McCain have to defend there. At least that's if Obama's team has done the polling that would show a significant increase if he were to select Bayh. I would HOPE they have done that extensively if they are going to.

..I'm not in the mix with those who are dead-set against him.



In a way, we've all been doing DU's version of "Vet the Veeps" here.

Some comments I've seen roll down the pike about some of our selections at one time or another...

"Jim Webb wrote some risqué material in his novels"..
"Bill Richardson is a crummy debater, fibbed about baseball, and hugs his Lt. Governor a lot"..
"Tim Kaine was a MAJOR Lieberman supporter"..
"Kathleen Sebelius' son created and marketed a controversial board game"..
"Joe Biden supposedly plagiarized something or other"..
"Wes Clark was demonized by the media who won't get off his case"..
"Hillary Clinton dissed Obama on camera one too many times"..
"Chet Edwards is a closet Bushie"..
"Chuck Hagel is a raving Republican"..
"Tim Roemer is not pro-choice"..
"Kerry and Edwards have "been there/done that"..

When you consider some of the chatter-vetting that goes on here..

~~~~ has anyone actually passed through "DU Acceptable Veep Meter" yet with flying colors?