QUOTE(graham4anything @ Aug 12 2008, 12:38 PM)
No it won't
If Obama wanted a devil, may as well just pick Hillary. At least she has fans out there. There is not one person in the nation outside of his family that knows Evan Bayh. 25 years in office, and NOT ONE accomplishment.
He balanced the budget in Indiana -- his tax cuts spurred economic growth...
I have posted his accompishments before...
November 10, 2006
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Dan Pfeiffer, All America PAC Communications Director
RE: All America PAC Post-Election Report
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moderate Heartland Democrats Gave Democrats Their Victory in 2006
The lesson of this election is clear – we won by turning the Red states of the Heartland Blue. Indiana, which has voted for the Republicans in 16 of the last 17 presidential elections, sent three new Democrats to Congress. This is not an accident. Evan Bayh has developed a formula for winning under the most difficult of circumstances. He is fiscally responsible, tough on national security, shares the values of middle class families, and values progress over partisanship.
The election results show that following the lead of Indiana and the Heartland is the best way to build a true Democratic Majority and capture the White House in 2008.
Of the 29 House seats that the Democrats picked up, 10 came from the Midwest.
And more than half (15) came from a region comprised of the Midwest and the Industrial Belt (Pennsylvania to the east through Kansas to the west) – a region culturally and economically similar to Indiana. Indeed, geographically, Indiana is at the epicenter of this region.
According to Pew Research, Democrats increased their vote total by 7 percent among Independents and 5 percent among Moderate voters from the 2004 House elections.
12 of the 29 (40%) House pick ups were from Red districts that Bush won in 2004.
All America PAC’s Efforts
While Bayh’s top political priority was electing Indiana Democrats, he also stumped for Democratic candidates across the country, particularly in Red States like Ohio, Kentucky, Nevada, and Arizona – and directly contributed more than $270,000 to over 350 Democratic candidates and Party committees this cycle.
Along with stumping for candidates all across the country - Bayh’s All America PAC trained and deployed 50 paid campaign staffers to crucial races in Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. These Camp Bayh staffers were victorious in 40 of the campaigns they worked on, including eight Congressional races.
As a former Governor, Bayh knows the importance of state legislatures and was committed to electing Democrats in state House and Senate races across the country. The Hotline reported earlier this week, “IA GOP sources credit staffers detailed to IA state leg races by Sen. Evan Bayh's All America PAC for the Dem victory in the state. Approx. 25 staffers paid by Bayh's PAC helped IA Dems work on those campaigns; Republicans had fewer than 10 paid staffs working on leg. Races.”
Along with the success in Iowa, Democrats took back the Indiana State House and the New Hampshire State House and Senate. According to Boston Globe political columnist James Pindell: “There’s no doubt that Evan Bayh can take some credit for the fact that Democrats in New Hampshire had an historic night,” Pindell told HPR. “He gave his time. He gave his money. He also allowed 15 staffers to share their resources for these races. The most important thing Evan Bayh can take away from the victories in New Hampshire is a more knowledgeable staff.” http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/2006/bayhacc06.htmlGraham the governorship in Indiana is up for electon this year so if Bayh is a VP candidate he can help get himi elected and assure his seat stays a Democrtat..
There goes that argument...
For Bayh, Shot No. 3 at No. 2 Spot
Committee Seats,
Red-State Support
Complement Obama
By CHRISTOPHER COOPER and DOUGLAS BELKIN
August 6, 2008; Page A4
Officially, Barack Obama will deliver an energy-policy speech Wednesday to citizens in Elkhart, Ind. But the focus of the political chattering class will be on the man sitting shotgun at the event: Evan Bayh, the Indiana senator thought to be on the likely Democratic presidential nominee's short list of vice-presidential candidates.
The scion of a prominent Hoosier political family and a former two-term Democratic governor of a deep-red state, Sen. Bayh is viewed by many as an ideal complement to the Illinois senator, who has a charismatic stage presence but a short political résumé for a presidential candidate.
Understated in demeanor and rarely demonstrating a passion for showboat political issues, Sen. Bayh may lack flash. But he sits on the powerful Senate armed-services and intelligence committees, enjoys an easy rapport with Midwestern crossover conservatives and displays a fund-raising knack extending beyond his home constituency.
OpenSecrets.org, which tracks federal political donations, says Sen. Bayh has raised $10.9 million between 2003 and 2008, with 77% of his cash coming from out of state.
Sen. Bayh is also a known commodity. He was under consideration for the No. 2 job -- and presumably vetted for the position -- by the previous two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry. It was with Mr. Gore, one former Bayh aide said, that Sen. Bayh had his best shot of making the ticket.
FORUM
• Vote: Could a presidential candidate's choice of vice president swing your vote?
The connection to Mr. Gore -- and by extension, to the Clintons -- provides another potential benefit of an Obama-Bayh matchup. Sen. Bayh has ties to former President Bill Clinton from when the two were governors. He sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee with Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose bruising primary battle with Sen. Obama continues to evoke hard feelings among her supporters and threatens party unity.
"Sitting next to someone on a Senate committee has sparked more than a few deep friendships," said Anita Dunn, a political adviser for Sen. Obama who served as an adviser to Sen. Bayh during his Senate campaigns.
An early Obama adherent, Ms. Dunn said she wasn't surprised when Sen. Bayh allied himself with Sen. Clinton, whom he described as having "a spine of steel." During the Indiana primary, he offered his own staff to help put her over the top in her race against Sen. Obama, who had a huge ground staff and an advantage in Indiana districts around Chicago, where he is well-known. "There's a Democratic political machine in Indiana -- it's called Evan Bayh," Ms. Dunn said.
The Indiana Democratic Party was in shambles when Sen. Bayh sought and won his first statewide office, secretary of state, in 1987. His father, Birch Bayh, a liberal Democrat and former U.S. senator, had been out of office since losing a re-election bid in 1980. Backers see kismet in the fact that Birch Bayh's campaign slogan when he ran for president in 1976 was "Change We Can Believe In." That is also Sen. Obama's slogan.Birch Bayh was a darling of liberals, having been the chief architect of the Equal Rights Amendment, which failed to muster enough support to get ratified, and the 26th Amendment, which extended voting rights to 18-year-olds. He also championed Title IX, landmark legislation that included forcing equal opportunity in school athletics for females.
Evan Bayh, by contrast, voted in favor of a failed amendment that would have banned flag-burning and legislation that would have kicked Russia out of the Group of Eight leading economic nations. What upset many liberals the most was his vote to authorize the Iraq invasion and his subsequent co-chairmanship, with likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain, of the Iraq Liberation Committee, a neoconservative group that pushed hard for war.
Sen. Bayh now says he regrets his early support of the Iraq war and has no recollection of the committee. "I don't remember any meetings, any conversations, any anything," Sen. Bayh said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "Obviously my name was linked to it, but other than that there's nothing that can be said."
Supporters note that his overall record hews closely to the Democratic line and sometimes goes beyond it, such as when he voted against the confirmation of conservative Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Sen. Bayh made perhaps his biggest political impression as governor. He developed a reputation as a fiscal conservative, ushering through the biggest tax cut in recent state history and passing what he considers the signal legislation of his career: a bill that extends free tuition to grade-school students who pledge to stay out of trouble. The initiative passed over the objections of a Republican-dominated statehouse."He was a governor who tried to not ruffle feathers," said Murray Clark, chairman of Indiana's Republican Party. "It's helped him; he's made very few enemies."
What few political enemies Sen. Bayh does have cast him in terms that hark back to the latest Democratic vice president, Mr. Gore, often branded an automaton by detractors. Sen. Bayh's critics include Paul Helmke, a former mayor of Fort Wayne who ran unsuccessfully against him for a Senate seat in 1998.
"As a debater, I felt like I was in the 'Twilight Zone' show. You want to reach over and slit the arm to see if there's flesh and blood or just wires," said Mr. Helmke, who is now the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "One of my big accomplishments was at one point [in the debate], he started to sweat."
Ms. Dunn, the current Obama adviser, dismisses such criticism. "Is it boring to win five times as a Democrat in a state that's overwhelmingly Republican?" Ms. Dunn asked. "Obviously, the people of Indiana think there's something exciting about him."A person on Sen. Obama's staff has said no vice-presidential announcement will come Wednesday in Indiana. Sen. Obama has told reporters not to put too much stock in rumors about candidates.
Write to Christopher Cooper at christopher.cooper@wsj.com and Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com
