Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh’s decision not to seek reelection will be analyzed ad nauseam for its political implications. Will the Democrats be able to hold the seat? Might they even lose the Senate? Is this bad for me and good for you? Or is it the other way around? But what everyone in Washington ought to be paying attention to is Bayh’s reason for leaving. He probably could have kept his seat if he wanted it, but he decided, basically, that serving in the United States Senate was a waste of his time. “For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should,” he said, putting it mildly.
The fundamental message that the country has been sending to Washington for years now is: You people never get anything worthwhile done. That accusation is not literally true, as anyone who pays close attention is well aware. But the big unsolved problems that we’ve known about for ages – soaring debt, crumbling infrastructure, a crazy health-care system, you know the rest – remain unsolved.
Bayh said that one of his final straws was the recent Senate vote to kill a bipartisan commission to come up with solutions for the federal deficit and our long-term debt. “The measure would have passed, but seven members who had endorsed the idea instead voted ‘no’ for short-term political reasons,” Bayh said, in an accurate recounting.
It is incredible that a U.S. senator believes he can be of more service to his state and his nation in some other role — running a business, leading a university. Wow. Anyone who wonders why there is such anti-incumbent fervor in the land ought to have a chat with Evan Bayh. I didn’t agree with him on every issue, but on the dysfunction in Washington he’s absolutely right. This city is broken because too many of our leaders confuse politics with service. Americans know the difference.
I don’t know much about Bayh, but if he is as Robinson presents him here, he’s a truth-sayer. I’m from a Republican Southern State. I don’t really mind that we have Republican Senators. That really is the dominant Party in the State of Georgia, outside of Atlanta. What I mind is that we have Senators who vote politically, and don’t engage with the country’s problems. They’re Boehner stooges [and Boehner is a stooge himself]. And neighboring Alabama has the grandest stooge of all – Senator Richard Shelby who put a block on all appointees over some pork issue. Incumbants are going to fall like flies in 2010. Problem is, the replacements aren’t likely to be much better.
Newt’s "Contract with America" of 1994 has turned out to be something like Faust’s contract with the Devil. I personally think that’s when the real Congressional nose-dive started. That may not be right, but it’s when I personally began to think Congress was dysfunctional. It’s when the seeds of Reagan’s deregulation took hold. And it has been crazy ever since. I think I’m in the ranks of putting Congressional Reform on the top of our already overburdened agenda…
02/16/2010: Evan Bayh’s retirement has stuck with me since I read it yesterday – maybe I should say, "stuck in my craw." We so looked forward to the passing of the Bush Administration, and what we got seems almost worse. All my life, I’ve listened to politicians use worlds like "partisan" and "special interests" as invectives to hurl at opponents, but somehow they’ve taken on a new meaning in the 2009-2010 Congress – like that’s all that is left over now that "government" has flown the coop. It’s hard to fault Bayh for saying to hell with it all…
I think you are right about the decline. I remember it well and remember writing Bill Cohen and Olympia Snowe both at the time asking them what in the hell was going on and that I hoped they would be resisting the whole thing in great earnest. I reminded them of Margaret Chase Smith and the responsibility I thought they had for advancing the practices of the party of Lincoln. We’ve come a long way eh?
Strikes me that this is the ultimate legacy of the Rovian strategy to “build a permanent Republican majority.” While the conventional wisdom in any national election used to focus on how to attract the “mushy middle,” Rove–showing his Atwaterian genes–trumpeted the mantra that the middle be damned, just concentrate on solidifying the base. This lead to increasingly right wing idealogical themes and increasingly nastier tactics. I recall in college, as a political science major, studying some of the legendary “deal makers” of both the House and Senate, and how they were able to forge alliances across the aisle. I suspect that today, even some of these legends would have little success, given that the Republicans have sworn fealty to this approach.
Have Republicans taken the time to ask themselves what they can do for the good of the country and not for the good of their party. I honestly don’t know why a few good men in the party don’t do what Senator Jeffrys did when he became an Independent. Am I deluding myself that there are a few good men who actually care for people who are middle income and those who are poor who need help to live in this very cruel hard world.