rssStop Bayh Grows
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 1:00 pm
- 2 Comments
The push to preempt Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) as a potential running mate for Sen. Barack Obama is growing today. TPM covers a swift spike in membership for the "10,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh for VP" Facebook group, which I joined this morning and wrote about here. After less than a day, it has more than double the total membership of every other Bayh Facebook. That includes his official PAC and a pre-08 group called "Barack Obama and Evan Bayh in 2008."
The numbers for all these groups are still in the hundreds, though, reflecting activist engagement, not mass public opinion. But activists are definitely panning the Bayh rumor. Matt Stoller, an influential blogger and sometime Democratic campaign operative, writes today that the very prospect of a centrist Bayh ticket "suggests that Obama’s campaign and governing agenda will be extremely small-bore." Another blogger cast him as the pro-war "comatose choice." One diarist at MyDD, however, pushed back today with the "Case for Evan Bayh."
Unlike the constant TV speculation on running mates, which focuses on electability and optics, many activists are clearly opposingBayh because of his policies and concerns about the impact he would have in an Obama administration. It’s a needed dose of substance in the unyielding veepstakes.
2 Comments
Comment posted August 13, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
I am a progressive Democrat and I would be very supportive of Bayh as VP. He has many qualities that would make him an excellent VP. Many of the readers of this site and others like the Daily Kos seem to forget that they generally are from the leftist fringe of the Democratic party and don’t represent where the vast majority of Americans are. Sure, it’s nice to have your idealistic views about who should be picked, but reality dictates that Obama winning is the most important thing and a candidate like Bayh appeals to many of the voters in the middle of the political spectrum, whose votes are going to decide who wins, not the readers of sites like this one. So, cut Obama some slack, let him pick a candidate that will appeal to critical swing voting blocks and then celebrate his victory and 4 or more years in the White House. Most Democrats in the House and Senate at the time, including Hillary Clinton, voted for the war resolution for a number of (perhaps bad) reasons. But Bayh and the rest are Democrats who largely support many the many other issues that I, and you, should care about. What I most care about is Obama winning, and you should too. So, if Bayh is picked, I suggest that you accept it and work for the Obama/Bayh ticket, unless you really want John McCain as your president.
Comment posted August 13, 2008 @ 11:05 am
I am a progressive Democrat and I would be very supportive of Bayh as VP. He has many qualities that would make him an excellent VP. Many of the readers of this site and others like the Daily Kos seem to forget that they generally are from the leftist fringe of the Democratic party and don't represent where the vast majority of Americans are. Sure, it's nice to have your idealistic views about who should be picked, but reality dictates that Obama winning is the most important thing and a candidate like Bayh appeals to many of the voters in the middle of the political spectrum, whose votes are going to decide who wins, not the readers of sites like this one. So, cut Obama some slack, let him pick a candidate that will appeal to critical swing voting blocks and then celebrate his victory and 4 or more years in the White House. Most Democrats in the House and Senate at the time, including Hillary Clinton, voted for the war resolution for a number of (perhaps bad) reasons. But Bayh and the rest are Democrats who largely support many the many other issues that I, and you, should care about. What I most care about is Obama winning, and you should too. So, if Bayh is picked, I suggest that you accept it and work for the Obama/Bayh ticket, unless you really want John McCain as your president.
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