WASHINGTON – A back stabber. A “conservaDem.” A Democrat In Name Only. A corporate shill.
Ouch.
Sen. Evan Bayh took a lot of (not so) friendly fire last week as liberal grass-roots groups and bloggers started a campaign to pressure him and other moderate Democrats to fully embrace President Obama’s policy goals.
Bayh’s sin, from the groups’ perspective, was twofold: He created a group of like-minded Senate Democrats to “pursue sensible solutions.” He also said he doesn’t support a fast-track procedure for Obama’s suggested approach to reducing air pollution.
“We’re not ideologues,” Bayh said of the group of 15 senators. “We are pragmatic. We’re not strident partisans. We care about our country more than our party.”
Though the group has yet to announce any positions, it almost immediately came under attack as being hostile to Obama.
MoveOn.org, USAction, Campaign for America’s Future and various bloggers denounced Bayh in terms that you’d think Democrats would reserve for Republicans in the heat of a campaign, not for fellow Dems in the first weeks of an all-Democratic government.
“This is nothing more than a naked power grab by corporatists who use the conservative bent of their districts to push through legislation on behalf of lobbyists and control campaign cash, and become the arbiters of any law that gets through Congress. It’s Jack Abramoff/Tom DeLay all over again.” That was from Jane Hamsher, founder of the liberal blog site, FireDogLake.com, commenting on the creation of Bayh’s group.
As for the air pollution legislation: Bayh hasn’t said he won’t support Obama’s idea for a cap-and-trade system, which sets limits on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted and requires overpolluters to buy credits from underpolluters.
But Indiana, which gets more than 90 percent of its energy from coal-fired power plants – the plants that produce the pollution – would be hard hit economically under cap-and-trade. And Bayh said he was hired by Hoosiers to look out for his state.
“Because of the potential for substantial disproportional harm to the state of Indiana,” he said, “we need to make sure we take our time to get that done correctly.”
Bayh said he might well support a cap-and-trade bill and even vote to block a filibuster of it, but it depends on what the bill says. He just doesn’t want the fast-track procedure used, which protects bills from filibuster even before the legislation is written.
But that’s not good enough for Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, who says Bayh should not put the economic concerns of Indiana above what’s good for the country.
He and others griped that Bayh is working overtime to find a centrist position, which they say means capitulating to Republicans.
In an interview about the groups’ campaign, which includes radio ads and online commercials that mention him, Bayh sounded defensive and aggrieved.
“People can’t very well expect us to say in advance we’re going to vote for something even though we have no idea what it’s going to say. I mean, gee whiz!” he said.
Besides, Bayh rightly points out, there is no cap-and-trade bill yet. Obama has put forth a concept. Attacking Bayh for saying he wants a chance to make the best case possible for Indiana seems a bit of an overkill.
All of this brings two thoughts to my mind:
•It doesn’t hurt Bayh one bit to be perceived in Indiana as the punching bag of the Democratic Party’s left wing.
Borosage, Hamsher et al. point out that Obama won Indiana in ’08, so Hoosier pols – R’s and D’s alike – should tread carefully when they take a position not completely in line with Obama. The implication is that all the Hoosier Obama voters will rise up against them in the 2010 elections.
It is true Obama took Indiana – but with just 50 percent of the vote. A victory, to be sure, but a far cry from a landslide and overwhelming mandate. Besides, voting for a candidate hardly means total agreement with every utterance or policy.
Bayh has always won elections with the support of Republican voters. Some of their affection might have dimmed a bit when he campaigned vigorously first for Hillary Rodham Clinton then for Obama and was credibly rumored to be the runner-up in Obama’s vice presidential selection process.
So his moderate credentials might need a wee bit of burnishing home-side as he approaches his re-election campaign next year.
•Didn’t Obama say, during his campaign, that he wanted to end the partisan gridlock?
The liberal groups and bloggers seem to place no value or credence on that. In fact, their my-way-or-the-highway approach is exactly what they emphatically despised in the last administration.
