2/16: It's Never Easy To Say Good-Bayh

The big topic in the blogosphere is Sen. Evan Bayh's (D-IN) surprise decision to retire at the end of this term. Liberal bloggers have never liked Bayh, so many of them are celebrating the news of his imminent departure. "Good riddance," Jonathan Zasloff declares. "Obviously, it makes it more difficult for the Democrats to hold the seat, but Bayh's extraordinary unctuousness and vapidity will not be missed." Other lefty bloggers are criticizing Bayh for announcing his retirement right before before the candidate filing deadline, thereby forcing the IN Dem party to select its own candidate. John Cole calls the last-minute announcement "Bayh's Final FU" while Ta-Nehisi Coates decries it as "an extraordinary act of selfishness." Meanwhile, conservative bloggers are celebrating Bayh's retirement, as they now believe that his seat is "a VERY LIKELY pickup for the GOP." Other righty bloggers are mischievously trying to help longshot candidate Tamyra D'Ippolito (D) get enough signatures before the deadline so that she'll appear on the ballot.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• RedState editor Erick Erickson has announced that "birfers and truthers" are officially banned from his site: "If you think 9/11 was an inside job or you really want to debate whether or not Barack Obama is an American citizen eligible to be President, RedState is not a place for you." Erickson's announcement prompted a slew of angry emails from RedState readers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Firedoglake founder Jane Hamsher wonders if the NV Tea Party's decision to field its own SEN candidate will "split the vote on the right" and help Sen. Harry Reid (D) get re-elected.

IN SEN: Good Riddance!

Needless to say, liberal bloggers don't have many good things to say about Bayh:

• Firedoglake's Blue Texan: "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Evan."
• TAPPED's Paul Waldman: "If nothing else, we'll have one fewer sanctimonious centrist around to pull a Hamlet act every time a significant piece of legislation is considered."
• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "So will Bayh's wife keep her cushy corporate boards now that he's no longer important?"
• The Reality-Based Community's Zasloff: "Good riddance. Obviously, it makes it more difficult for the Democrats to hold the seat, but Bayh's extraordinary unctuousness and vapidity will not be missed. [...] He has been in the Senate for 12 years, and what has he accomplished? What does he stand for? I can think of two things offhand: he worries that the Democrats aren't fiscally responsible, and he wants to eliminate the estate tax. That kind of hypocritical incoherence pretty much sums him up."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "[Ex-IN Sen.] Birch Bayh has been out of the Senate for 30 years, but people still remember him as a key architect of Title IX, a proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment, and a crusader for sensible political reform like electoral college abolition. Thirty years from now, I think Bayh the Elder will still be remembered in that way. [...] Who's going to remember Evan Bayh in 2040? What will he be remembered for? His die-hard commitment to the children of multi-millionaires?"
• Balloon Juice's Cole: "So where is he heading? Eli Lilly? Wellpoint? PHRMA? My worst fear is he will join a wingnut welfare 'thinktank' and he will be on tv spewing his bullshit nonstop. At least as a lobbyist he will be doing the same damage to the country he did as a Senator because let's face it -- it isn't much of a role change from what he and his wife are doing now."

Other liberal bloggers are arguing that Bayh's departure still hurts Dems, even if Bayh infuriated progressives during his tenure:

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "[This] is also another blow to Democratic Senate hopes in November. Bayh, for all the frustration he caused progressives, was part of a well-known family institution in Indiana, and as such was the best Democratic bet to keep the seat. It is going to be much more difficult for Democrats to keep this seat, now."
• FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver: "[A] Republican from Indiana would probably also be at least reasonably conservative, and would rarely align with the Democrats on key votes. And, without Bayh holding the seat, we'd expect a Republican to get elected in Indiana the majority of the time. On balance, then, Bayh was a decent trade-off for the Democrats. Although he is not as liberal as he could be, he had a lot of value as a placeholder in preventing a conservative Republican from being elected in his place."

IN SEN II: Bayh's Final F.U. To Dems

Liberal bloggers are angry that Bayh announced his retirement right before before the filing deadline:

• BooMan: "Evan Bayh is a dick."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Bayh screwed the Democrats. He really is a putz."
• The Atlantic's Coates: "That is just amazing to me. I don't know Evan Bayh, so I don't know if this is narcissism or what. But to leave your colleagues in such a bad way strikes me as an extraordinary act of selfishness."
• digby: "In a final act of perfidy, Evan Bayh walks away from reelection at the last possible moment, thus ensuring that the voters will not have a chance to choose and allowing the party apparatus to pick a Blue Dog creep to replace him. It just doesn't get any better than this."
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "What's interesting about Bayh's decision isn't just that Bayh doesn't seem to want to hold his seat anymore, but that the timing suggests he also doesn't want the Democrats to hold his seat anymore. [...] If he'd made this decision sooner, his replacement could've spent that time raising money and cornering support. Instead, he'll start by being chosen through a process Republicans will paint as a backroom deal and then he'll have to hit up donors who already gave money to Bayh thinking that was how they would keep the seat in the Democratic column. The difficulty of that process, plus the darkening outlook for the midterm elections, will probably make it harder for Democrats to recruit a top-tier candidate for the race."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "Luke Russert tweets: 'Amazing, Bayh told his staff he was done on Friday and didn't call Harry Reid until 25 minutes ago!!!' If that's true, it's pretty remarkable behavior even for someone as famously callow as Bayh. [...] Bayh had already raised $13 million for his reelection campaign, and up until a few days ago he was assuring party leaders that he would run. Pulling out at this late date is a pretty explicit show of pique, and an obvious gift to Republicans, whose odds of picking up Indiana in November just went way up. Bayh didn't quite give Democrats the finger on his way out, but he did everything short of it."
• Yglesias: "Obviously, Evan Bayh's never been my favorite Senator. And the more one learns about both the manner of his departure, and the thinking behind it, the clearer it is why. Simply put: He's an immoral person who conducts his affairs in public life with a callous disregard for the impact of his decisions on human welfare. He's sad he's not going to be president? He doesn't like liberal activists? He finds senate life annoying? Well, boo-hoo. We all shed a tear. He's ditching his seat in a manner calculated to throw control of it to a conservative Republican. And nothing about his stated reasons for leaving suggest that he thinks replacing Evan Bayh with a conservative Republican will make the lives of Americans better. [...] But he's acting to ensure that it happens anyway. Because he doesn't care about the welfare of the American people or the people of the world."

On the other hand, Daily Kos' Jed Lewison thinks that Bayh actually helped Dems by announcing his retirement right before the filing deadline: "Unlike Democrats, Republicans already have candidates vying for their party's nomination, including former Rep. John Hostetler and Senator-turned-lobbyist Dan Coats. Because the signature deadline is tomorrow, that pretty much sets the GOP field. Unless both Hostetler and Coats were to withdraw, Republicans won't be in a position to choose a nominee as will Democrats. The implication of that: Bayh's timing appears to make it nearly impossible for candidates like Rep. Mike Pence (who says he will not run despite Bayh's retirement) or Gov. Mitch Daniels to get on the ballot. So while Bayh was a sure thing versus Coats and Hostetler, given his retirement, Bayh's timing here may actually give Democrats the best chance at holding onto the seat."

IN SEN III: Was Bayh Destined To Lose?

Most conservative bloggers believe that Bayh decided to retire because he knew that he had a difficult path to re-election:

• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Indiana would not have likely sent Bayh back for a third term in any event. [...] It usually skews conservative, and most certainly would have done so in the midterms, even with Bayh remaining in the race."
• AmSpec Blog's W. James Antle III: "Evan Bayh was the Democrats' strongest candidate by far and his decision to retire suggests -- protestations to the contrary aside -- that even he wasn't sure he could keep the seat. While a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll showed Bayh in good shape, it assumed a 2008-like electorate. An earlier Rasmussen poll making different assumptions showed Bayh losing to Pence and barely ahead of John Hostettler."
• Power Line's Scott Johnson: "Bayh is a casualty of the Obama administration's leftward lurch abetted by the Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate. Having passed himself off back home for years as a moderate, Bayh nevertheless went along for the ride as the Democrats voted for the Senate version of Obamacare and busted the budget with the 'stimulus' bill principally benefiting public employees. Recall that a junior congressman by the name of Dan Quayle knocked off the seeming invincible incumbent Indiana Senator Birch Bayh in 1980. In the course of a series of debates, Quayle had effectively exposed Bayh as, well, a liberal. It is no surprise that Evan Bayh can read the writing on the wall."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "On Election Day 2008, when Obama was carrying the state, Indiana's electorate split 36 percent Democrat, 41 percent Republican, 24 percent independent. Obviously, Democratic turnout will probably be worse in 2010 than 2008; and independents have turned against Democrats by a wide margin in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. There's no reason to think that the pattern wouldn't continue with Indiana. What's more, 13 percent of Indiana's Republicans voted for Obama; no way that Bayh would score that well with the national mood as it is. In short, Bayh had a tough, though not impossible, road ahead in his reelection bid. Judging from his comments, he has determined that even with his pile of cash and the advantages of incumbency, it wasn't worth it."

Hot Air's Allahpundit disagrees: "He was destined to lose in November[?] Nonsense. He has a huge war chest, a respected family brand, a reputation for centrism to give him some distance from Obama, and an opponent in Dan Coats whose name recognition is much lower than his own. He would have had to explain his vote on ObamaCare but siding with the GOP on a bunch of issues this year would have eased the blow of that. Plus, he's never lost an election. If Pence had jumped in, I might have bought this as an explanation. As it is, nuh uh."

Several righty bloggers (Lopez, Malkin) are sad that Pence decided not to run. Meanwhile, Erickson endorses state Sen. Marlin Stutzman (R) over Coats: "I have a lot of respect for Dan Coats. But the man retired in 1998 and then publicly announced he was moving to North Carolina. Then he became a lobbyist. The GOP needs to change its public image that voters have. It should not be using retired Senators who moved out of the state and become a lobbyist to do that. We need younger faces and fresher voices. We need guys like [ex-FL House Speaker] Marco Rubio. And we need guys like Marlin Stutzman."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why Are Dems Panicking?

NBC's First Read wonders:

"If we told you that Democrats were favored to lose about eight Senate seats (six of which are in states Obama carried in '08), lose some 30 to 40 in the House, and see their top domestic issue -- health care -- stalled in Congress, you'd guess that President Obama's approval rating was, what, 35%? Maybe 40%? But as any close follower of American politics knows, Obama's approval is at or near 50% (even at 53% in the always-volatile Gallup daily track). Yet Democrats, including what we saw and heard from Evan Bayh yesterday, are behaving like Obama is at 35%. This is particularly ironic when we're just a year-plus removed from a president whose approval was 25% to 30%. There is no doubt that this is a TOUGH political environment for Democrats, but are they making it tougher by running for the hills when things might not be as bad for them as was the GOP's situation from 2006-2008? And what does it say about the Democrats and their ability to govern when they're acting like this when their president is at 50%? Republicans rallied around their president in '04, when he was hovering around 50%."

NRO's Rich Lowry replies:

"First Read asks today why Democrats are acting panicked as if Obama is at 35 or 40 percent job approval rather than 50 (or 47–48 if you go by the averages). I'd suggest two reasons. 1) Obama's approval numbers actually are around 35 or 40 among whites (37 percent in the recent Quinnipiac, 42 in the latest Gallup breakdown), which is why senators and congressmen without significant minority populations in the areas they represent are panicky. 2) I can't prove it, but I'm guessing that Obama's job approval numbers still reflect warm personal feelings toward him. His numbers on key domestic issues tend to be even worse. Obama's personal appeal doesn't transfer over to Congressional Democrats while the unpopularity of his domestic agenda does (not to mention their own popularity). All of this may be why Obama seems to be holding up okay, while his party begins to crumble around him."

LEST WE FORGET: Local Asshole Attains World-Class Status

From The Onion:

"MADISON, PA -- Local asshole Skyler Berwin, 28, was granted world-class asshole status Saturday during a special ceremony held in recognition of detestable actions that were deemed beyond the pale even for a major-league asshole such as himself. 'Due to Mr. Berwin's consistent refusal to pay for drinks, his tendency to loudly point the flaws of others, and his habit of turning up at your place unannounced to eat whatever's in the fridge and then crash for a couple days, the board votes unanimously in this matter,' said National North American Asshole Council chairman Tucker Max, citing sworn affidavits testifying that Skyler had been 'a career asshole as far back as college.' 'I hereby declare Skyler Berwin to be a 24-karat, world-class asshole, with all the rights and responsibilities pertaining to that office.' Following his certification, Berwin refused to apologize for his actions, claiming that that was just the kind of asshole he is."