Someone alerted me to this John Nichols post at the Nation on the topic of Bayh’s departure from the U.S. Senate and thoughts on his replacement. Nichols pointed out that Bayh wasn’t doing Democrats any favors to start with and replacing him might be an opportunity. He suggests that the seat doesn’t have to be won by a Republican or a pro-corporate Democrat.
Indiana has been badly battered by the current recession.
This is an angry state that is looking for change, and rightly so.
Even before the economy went south, however, Indiana was experiencing the sort of rapid deindustrialization that devastates working families and their communities. Few states in the nation have suffered more seriously as a result of a ill-thought and poorly-implemented “bailout” of the auto industry and even more ill-thought free trade arrangements with China. (Even before the current downturn, the Economic Policy Institute determined that Indiana had lost more than 45,000 jobs because of the US-China trade imbalance. That number is unquestionably worse now. The state has, as well, lost an estimated 35,000 jobs as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement.)
. . .
[Bayh’s departure is] good news for Democrats who would prefer that their party stand for something.And it might even be good news for Indiana Democrats.
The question is whether they can find a candidate who is willing to run as a genuine economic populist — not a compromised centrist like Bayh or an apologist for Obama, whose policies have been at best murky (he still does not seem to get the jobs issue and he has yet to take a clear position on trade) and at worst damaging (his auto bailout has helped fund the closing of U.S. manufacturing plants in states such as Indiana).
All things being equal, Republicans will win this seat.
The key for Democrats then is to throw the balance off by finding a candidate who is capable of expressing the frustration and anger of voters in a state that has significantly higher unemployment than the rest of the country.
But, even if such a person could win, the fact is that Indiana Democrats won’t run a populist because Bayh strategically announced this just before the primary filing deadline. The result was that no Democrat filed to be on the primary ballot. This means the state party’s central committee will pick the candidate for the general election. I’m told that state chair, Dan Parker, is a Bayh man through and through as is, generally, the state party organization. So, we’ll get someone acceptable to (and, I suspect, ideologically similar to) Bayh.
Right now, one of the front runners is probably Representative Brad Ellsworth, a former Sheriff from the southwestern part of the state. He’s cast fairly conservative votes as a Democrat. In terms of winning the seat, he’s probably not a bad bet. He has a law enforcement background, he’s good looking, and he might have some appeal for conservatives. The problem is that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is getting tired of working hard, keeping quiet, and getting nothing out of the Democrats who do get elected in the state. In particular, gay and lesbian activists in the state will probably seriously consider sitting this one out. They aren’t a huge voting bloc, maybe, but they are organized, active, and fairly well funded.
We can be reasonably confident that a Birch Bayh liberal will not emerge from the Democratic central committee. We’ll likely get someone else in the Evan Bayh/Dan Quayle pro-corporation [*] mold. Which is too bad, because there is a decent chance that relatively fringe Republican could emerge from their primary — former Representative Hostettler or Richard “getting his guns ready for the big show if 2010 elections don’t go the ‘right’ way” Behney.
Former Hoosier, Senator and lobbyist Dan Coats would be a safe choice for the Indiana Republicans, but doesn’t seem to fit the mood of the Republican electorate. Off hand and subject to change as I learn more, I’d say that state Senator Marlin Stutzman (who I don’t, frankly, know much about) would be the Indiana Republicans’ best fit between electable and sufficiently conservative for the base.
[*] I probably need a better description than “pro-corporate.” A corporation is just a fictitious legal entity and can encompass a vast range of activity, some of which is helped by policies Sen. Bayh has favored and some of which is hurt. “Pro-business” also does not capture his policies because a lot of what he has supported hasn’t done much to help, for example, the little shoe store on main street. Pro-Mega Corp?
Warning, almost off-topic
I thought the Supreme Court ruled (incorrectly, IMHO) recently that a corporation is a person?
The corporation as a person thing has been around for a little over 100 years, I guess. (See this case for the odd history surrounding that.) But it’s still a legal fiction. A corporate entity is entirely a creature of law. Absent the legal fiction, it would just be a bunch of people doing stuff together and not an independent entity.
This Democratic Party voter will not vote for Brad Ellsworth unless he moves significantly to the left during his campaign. Sadly, I doubt that is likely.
Simultaneously criticizing the assistance to the US automotive industry and decrying loss of US industrial base due to trade dealings with China; now that seems murky at best.
Bayh voted in favor of the 2005 Bankruptcy “Reform” Act.
So did Hillary and Biden. That was favored by the credit card companies.
Ted Kennedy and about 18 to 20 other senators at the time
voted against it.
I’ll use that as my measuring stick as to who leans “corporate”
and who leans “consumer” oriented.
Mellencamp.
Why not?
Doug, my entirely unlettered opinion–do I need to point that out?–is that the “legal fiction” is the extension of the rights of persons to legal aggregations of persons which were designed, in the first place, to limit their liability as persons for group action. So that, just as we have legislatively privatized gain and socialized loss, so too have the courts–since the Founding, a much more consistent defender of property over personal rights–socialized civil liability and monetized civil rights.
Property rights are preferred over personal rights because everyone – even the wrong sorts – has a person. Property is a little more exclusive.
T, Mellencamp told Dan Rather a few years back that he was so liberal that if he said how he really felt, he would be run out of the country. Rather pressed him to explain and he wouldn’t budge.
Two big problems there.
First, he might make political statements every now and then, but he seems to afraid to explain how he really feels. I don’t want that in an elected official, we have enough of that already.
Second, if what he says is true and he is more liberal than Dennis Kucinich, I’d say his chances of being elected in Indiana with the current feelings towards Democrats is about -0-.
Current feelings against Republicans and Democrats are about equal.
I think it would be easy to get elected if running as a populist against someone who is in the bankers’ pockets.
Point taken, T.
Winning elections is about two things- name recognition, and piles of money. Mellencamp has the former at least, and could easily attract the latter. Too liberal? Two words: Al Franken.
Winning elections is about more more thing that I learned last election:getting out the voters one by one .I never thought about it when I lived in Chicago,but there was someone who kept track if I voted or didn’t vote. ..Then when I stood in those long lines to vote for Obama I realized that most of these people,primarily blacks and hispanics, never were motivated to vote before ,but now someone knew they were standing in the voting lines,and were counting them as they voted. Those who knew the system got absentee ballots.
I think more than a 3rd party, huge numbers of voters turning out will revolutionize the democratic process in this country. I don’t know what the turnout was last election,but the perception was that ‘everyone voted.’
So this is the dimension we should look at grassroots organizations such as ACORN. With all the controversy, and their questionable voter registrations,in the final analysis, not one illegal vote was uncovered by those registered by ACORN. Every voter organizing group should get the scrutiny ACORN did.