Brian Howey: Evan Bayh’s surreal odyssey

By Brian Howey

 

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – It was the strangest thing. Evan Bayh could be sitting inside his house, peer into his computer screen, and see the front of his home. Or he could go jogging, and watch it on ABC News, where he could also hear news of Susan Bayh’s new hairdo.

Such is the life of a veepstakes finalist. “It was surreal at times, watching the front of your house on TV in real time,” Sen. Bayh said of the live coverage last Friday on CNN. “And then the last day, one of the networks literally had someone following me around in a car. The last couple of weeks were a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I knew we were under serious consideration, I knew it was a small group.  I knew it was less than 50/50 but still a decent chance. So we were following the process just like everyone else.”

Could Bayh have eluded the news media by sneaking out through the bathroom window? “Not the way our house is constructed,” he said. “Well, I guess I could have scaled the fence and run through the neighbor’s yard. But, I have might have impaled myself.”

It was last Thursday afternoon that Bayh finally got the phone call from Barack Obama saying he would not ascend to the vice presidency. An office in the West Wing of the White House has been a goal of the senator for two decades. The fact that he ended up on the short list for the third time since 2000 was unexpected. He had ardently backed Hillary Clinton in the Indiana primary, helping her eke out a razor-thin margin.

That caught the attention of Obama and his campaign brain trust. The campaign is piling resources into our state and by early July, they called Bayh.  “I had no expectation of being considered because I was a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton,” Bayh said. “And then he was kind enough to call me and said, ‘Look, we're going to cast a wide net.’”

“He said he would be honored if I would be willing to go through the process of being considered,” Bayh said of his conversation with Obama.

Obama told him that only a handful would merit serious consideration and “I think you're one of them.”

“To get to the final two or three obviously you've got to have some pretty good things that recommend you or you don't get there. And obviously you can't have too many negative things otherwise you don't get there,” Bayh said.

Fueling the speculation were his campaign events with Obama at Purdue on July 16 and his swing through Elkhart and Portage in early August.  “They wanted to come to Indiana,” Bayh said. “And, by the way, all the talk about them not being serious in Indiana, well, that's not true. They're serious about it, even now. And that's good. So he came here to campaign, they wanted to focus on national security and Sam Nunn and I were strong voices on national security.”

And Elkhart? “The Elkhart thing that everybody got all excited about, it was really just a campaign event, there and Portage,” Bayh explained. “And on the bus between the two we spent a lot of good quality time, but we did not discuss one word about the vice presidential situation. We talked about kids and we talked about sports, which should tell you he's a pretty regular person.”

So, why didn’t Bayh get Obama’s nod?

It might have come down to the Russian tanks rolling into Georgia. The Cold War ended with the first President Bush, and it has been revived under the second President Bush with talk of bringing Ukraine (and half its Russian population) and fractured Georgia into NATO. This would be as provocative as the Russians adding new military bases in Cuba or Venezuela.  Sen. Joe Biden, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has the expertise and gravitas when it comes to dealing with an increasingly unstable world.

“When you get to that point it just becomes what the particular dynamics of the campaign happen to be,” Bayh said. “So I'm pretty philosophical about it.”

Or as Washington media consultant Chris Sautter observed, it probably came down to whether Obama needed a state (Bayh’s Indiana) or stature.

As for the fall election, recent polls show John McCain ahead in Indiana by 6 percent. When Obama called Bayh with the disappointing news, the junior senator replied with good news. “I told him I would do everything to help him out when it comes to campaigning in Indiana.”

A few minutes after we talked, Bayh called back. “What matters are the people of the country and Indiana. That's why I'm supporting Barack Obama. I was asked this morning by the Indiana delegation if I was disappointed. Well, I am disappointed, but it's not for the political reasons. I am disappointed in costs of health care. I'm disappointed with the war in Iraq and the state of the economy. I'm really going to be disappointed if we don't do what we can to change that.”

Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com