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No one in Washington, DC fully knows the story on why Evan Bayh decided not to run for reelection and, in the process, virtually leave his Senate seat with a wide open invitation to the Republicans. The “invite” comes in the form of the filing deadline in the Democratic party’s primary: today, one day after he announced his decision.
To anyone who has been around politics for more than a month or two, this looks like a dirty deal, an outright slap in the face of the party establishment. Why would he do such a thing? Further, he had raised 13 million dollars toward he reelection campaign and then, at almost the last possible moment, he said, no, I don’t think I want it any more.
This is a strange thing for anyone in a major office, who had also sought the presidency, to do on their way out the door. Something happened. No one knows for certain what it was. George Stephanopoulos**, who always pops up on ABC News to pronounce the final word on political matters, doesn’t really know, either. He talked last evening about Bayh’s disgust with partisan politics in Washington, but that doesn’t really cover it. In an important sense, it is a disservice to pretend you know all the answers when one of the biggest questions is being left off the table.
Why would a two term senator, two term governor and son of a US Senator want to leave the Congress by slapping his party across the face? The major media focused on the “stunning news” and took him at his word that he is fed up with trying to get things done in a toxic partisan atmosphere in Washington. This can be only part of the story.
Bayh is known as a very laid back senator, someone who shows up for votes and does what he has to, but someone who does not, by any means, live in the Senate the way Ted Kennedy did and in a way that is a lifestyle for many others. For some, being a US Senator becomes like the deepest part of their identity, a major part of who they are as human beings. Bayh acted like he could take it or leave it and he really decided to leave it.
He is quite correct in saying that politics, not the public interest, have overtaken everything that happens in Washington. He pointed out that when his father was in the Senate, senators would legislate for four years and run for reelection the last two. Now, it is like six years of campaigning, no stop, no pause, no slowdown. It is not surprising that any decent person would be disgusted with this process. Why, nonetheless, would he leave his party without the chance to field another candidate for the job? Is he like a retiring CEO who really, down deep, doesn’t want anyone to sit in his chair, even if he doesn’t want it anymore?
Chances are, the story will come out over the next weeks or months. It might be in a book. It might never be fully told, because, face it, what’s in it for Bayh? If the Dems had a few more senators and house members like Bayh, they could just forget about the next election.
Doug Terry
2.16.10
**ABC News is definitely under the spell of George S. He’s clearly a smart, informed guy, but here’s the problem: what happens on those days when he doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t know the answer to the most important question? Too bad. He gets on anyway. Further, he blocks out air time that might otherwise go to a reporter with more information. He is presented as the authority, so shut up and sit down, please.
By relying on “experts” to tell us what the news really is after the reporters have signed off, ABC skews its news in whatever direction these experts take it, whether it is truthful, useful or not. Sometimes, the most important function of a reporter can be simply to raise questions, even when the answer is not known. Instead, we get marched into the direction of firm conclusions about events and seldom go back to anything to examine whether it was the actual truth.
There is no way the ABC News is going to change its ways anytime soon. It is too easy, too convenient for the viewer to have things sewed up in a nice little package. It feels like you really know what happened, even when you don’t. There is precious little information as it stands in a half an hour newscast. We need more fact, less informed speculation and expert intervention in the news.
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