In an utterly un-shocking turn of events, Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) endorsed Hillary Clinton's candidacy for President. This is about as earth-shattering as Michael Moore declaring he's not particularly fond of George W. Bush.
What is noteworthy is that people (by which I mean "the media") noticed. This was a full-blown press conference photo-op affair, with Clinton and Bayh standing side by side. Granted, Hillary gets a lot of press, but somehow, this announcement was newsworthy.
Maybe it's because Indiana is a strongly Republican-leaning state. Maybe because it's Bayh is actually good-looking and projects "Hoosier values" (I'm a Hoosier and I still don't know what that means, except for liking corn on the cob and deep-fried pork tenderloin.) But my hunch is that this is a foreshadowing of things to come.
I'd mentioned before that Evan Bayh would be a good VP candidate for Clinton: he's a moderate from a red state with enough popularity that he might actually deliver Indiana; he's a former governor (giving him executive experience) and he's really not a Washington insider - at least, he's not perceived that way. It's tough to convince me that a 2-term Senator isn't on the inside, especially if it's obvious the party is fast-tracking him.
The blogosphere is now rife with predictions of a Clinton-Bayh ticket, and the timing of this would appear to set this in motion: this is the candidates' big fundraising push for the October reporting deadline. The October deadline is key, because it provides a real view of where candidates stand heading into the early primary campaigns, and underperforming candidates will often withdraw here. Politico.com, an influential political blog, is leading the pack in the Clinton-Bayh prediction, although I feel compelled to point out that I had him there about a month ago. I'm just sayin'.
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Ah, Evan! I remember first seeing him in 1960 in a B&W political ad for his father, Birch. Dad patted young Evan on the head and asked is he had a good day at school. He (Birch Bayh) went on to defeat 3-term senator Homer Capehart.
Evan is fiscally responsible enough to look conservative and could make for a nice balancing asset against Hillary's perceived liberalism. So it could work.
In the meantime, the Republican front runners are doing their very best to strengthen Hillary's ultimate chances by ignoring every event where black or brown faces predominate.
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