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WASHINGTON – Sen. Hillary Clinton admires his smarts and his passion, but she sidestepped a question Monday about whether Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., has what it takes to be her running mate.
“It goes without saying that his record of public service is exemplary,” she said. But Clinton went no further when asked whether Bayh is vice-presidential material.
“I have the highest personal and professional regard” for him, she said, adding that Bayh’s support would help her in Indiana, which has voted for the Republican presidential nominee in the past 10 elections.
Bayh, accompanied by his wife and several aides, endorsed and tied his immediate political fate to Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“The next president of the United States must be experienced and seasoned, must be smart and must be tough. I believe Hillary Clinton is all these things and more,” he said.
The announcement fueled speculation of a 2008 Clinton-Bayh ticket.
Bayh is seen as a running mate who could balance Clinton’s perceived liberal tilt and possibly add a Republican state to the Democratic column next year. Bayh won statewide races for secretary of state, twice for governor and twice for Senate.
In a tight race, Indiana’s 11 electoral votes could be all it takes for a Democratic ticket to capture the White House next year. Or if Bayh’s appeal in Indiana tipped the balance in neighboring Ohio, a swing state, it could be “the whole November ballgame,” said Larry Sabato, political scientist at the University of Virginia and expert on presidential politics.
“But can Bayh really carry Indiana for Hillary?” Sabato said. “She isn’t a good fit for Hoosiers, unless 2008 turns out to be a massive national Democratic landslide.”
Asked whether Clinton could win his home state, Bayh acknowledged that Indiana “is always somewhat uphill for the Democratic Party nominee. But if she runs the kind of campaign that I’m convinced she will – emphasizing middle-class economic opportunities, strength on national security and emphasizing the experience and seasoning from Day One – I think she could be competitive.”
Clinton, whose campaign billed the announcement as “a major national endorsement,” said that “working with him on a range of issues, I have seen the depth of his intellect and passion for getting it right for America.”
Clinton leads in most national polls and has raised more money than the other Democratic contenders.
Speculation about a Clinton-Bayh ticket has buoyed Bayh’s fans since he dropped out of the race nine months ago, two weeks after formally entering it. He said the front-runner status of Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was too daunting.
Despite $10 million in his Senate account and dozens of trips to Iowa, New Hampshire and other early-primary states since 2004, Bayh never gained much traction among voters outside Indiana. In national polls, he was mostly unknown. Just before Bayh withdrew from the race, a poll in Iowa – the first state that weighs in on presidential contenders – showed him to be the first or second pick of less than 2 percent of Democrats.
At the time, Bayh said that “the odds were always going to be very long for a relatively unknown candidate like myself, a little bit like David and Goliath.”
When Bayh ended his presidential campaign, political analysts immediately put him into the group of strong contenders for the No. 2 position, along with former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner. Warner has since announced he will run for Senate from Virginia.
sylviasmith@jg.net
