New Political Lexicon: "Bayh'd: To inexplicably quit at the last possible second, crippling your team's chances of success. Example: 'We were close to finishing that report and just two hours before the presentation Cathy just up and Bayh'd us and now we'll never have it ready on time.' NOTE: Not to be confused with 'pulling a Palin', which is abruptly quitting to pursue a better gig."
"Centrist" Indiana Senator Evan Bayh stunned his party by announcing his retirement today. I don't just mean he stunned you or me: apparently Bayh didn't even inform Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of his intention to resign until AFTER his office had leaked that info to the media.
We may never know all of his motivations. Maybe he's planning to run for governor or even president in a few years. Maybe he genuinely wants to spend more time with family. Maybe he wants to spend more time with his family. Maybe he wants to preserve his "no-loss" electoral track record and didn't want a tough reelection battle this year to jeopardize that. Nevertheless, we do know one motivation, according to CNN: "He hates the Senate, hates the left bloggers," a friend and longtime adviser to Bayh said. "They are getting their wish, pure Democrats in the minority."
Get that? Like his BFF Joe Lieberman, Bayh hates us, hates the "left bloggers." Is it inconceivable that he waited until roughly 24 hours before the filing deadline to announce his resignation simply in order to make it much more difficult for the party to hold his seat and thus, to strike back at those crazy "left bloggers" he hates so much? And it's not just us he hates. He's never been known as a good team player and his failure to give the party leadership a heads-up about this weeks or months ago simply drives home the contempt in which he holds his fellow colleagues. Bayh leaves DC in much the same way Bush did: sticking his tongue out and figuratively giving us all the finger.
Bayh's stated reason for not running for reelection is also revealing, although probably not in the way that he intends: "Congress is not operating as it should. There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples’ business is not being done." In short, the problem is the "extremes." If only everyone would come and meet me and other reasonable centrists here in the middle, we could solve all our problems.
The irony of all this is that the "centrist" path Bayh constantly talks about always leads to failure. It's all well and good to attack the "extremes" of political discourse, but throughout American history, coalitions that have accomplished meaningful change have ALWAYS come from the "extremes" of their day. The abolitionists were derided as radical extremists for daring to assert that no man has the right to enrich himself off the sweat of another man's brow. The suffragists were labeled dangerous extremists for spreading the folly that women were capable of thinking for themselves and making informed rational decisions at the ballot box. The labor leaders of yesteryear were vilified for suggesting that workers deserved days off each week (the weekend), extra pay for extra work (overtime), and the right to strike for better working conditions. The civil rights protesters... I could go on, but the point is obvious. Likewise, change can also come from the right, from reactionary forces in our society. While it was liberals who pushed to give freed slaves access to all the rights of citizenship and founded a government agency to assist them, it was conservatives who regrouped and launched an all-too successful assault on Reconstruction, plunging the nation into almost a century of Jim Crow. It was also conservatives who rolled back or watered down many of the New Deal and Great Society protections beginning in the late 1970s.
Change comes from the sides, not from the center, because for the most part, people in the center are not particularly engaged on the political debates raging on the national stage. Most of them simply tune out 99% of the political chatter. So while centrist voters are often critical in national elections, it's hard to build a successful electoral coalition in which moderates comprise the base. It's even harder to build a centrist governing coalition that will sustain and support major reforms of any kind. The center cannot hold, because it is not engaged and is easily distracted or confused. A year ago there was record majority support for the Democrats' health care reform agenda; now that support hovers below 40%. Part of that deterioration in support for health care "change" is that the opponents of reform spread a number of malicious lies about it, everything from coverage for illegals to "death panels" to damaging cuts to Medicare to the plan adding trillions to the deficit. Centrist voters were confused by all the accusations and frightened into supporting the broken status quo that had failed them time and time again. Same old story, divide and conquer.
"Bipartisanship" is always elusive. Because centrist voters don't follow the issues as closely as the more engaged liberals and conservatives, they fail to see why the two sides can't sit down together and work things out. Compromise in the middle, on common-sense solutions. Of course, since centrists tend not to follow the debate closely, they tend not to have any idea what a "common-sense compromise" actually would be. Which makes it incredibly easy for one side (in this case, the GOP) to obstruct all attempts at bipartisan outreach from the other side (the Democrats). Sure, centrists will blame Republicans for failing to compromise, but they will also blame Democrats for failing to reach out, no matter how often Democrats actually HAVE reached out. Ultimately centrists care about RESULTS and will blame both sides for failing to achieve them. It's the old game of Lucy with the football, a game transparently obvious to all of us "left blogger" extremists who pay close attention but not to those centrists only slightly paying attention. Centrists thus say "pox on both your houses, both sides are equally guilty," which only reinforces their tendency to tune out the political soap opera in DC.
All of which reinforces the status quo. And because centrist voters are hard to mobilize, a Democratic candidate can win either by focusing on "extremist" base voters or by cozying up to wealthy special interests to fund the campaign. Those Democratic politicians who choose the first path are castigated as "liberals" or "socialists" and their governing strategy is focused on primarily on appealing to that base while always trying to broaden it with centrist voters. Those Democratic candidates who take the second path are praised by the Establishment media as "moderates" or "centrists," but because their base of support is wealthy special interests rather than an ideologically-motivated base, their governing strategy consists of keeping their corporate base happy. These CorporaDems, of which Evan Bayh has been among the loudest members, constantly go to bat for special interests, even when that goes against the wishes of their voting constituents. There is no reason why North Dakota or Arkansas voters would be adamantly opposed to having a non-taxpayer-funded public option for health insurance, and polls have found that earlier in the debate, healthy majorities existed in each state for just such a reform. "Centrist" senators like Conrad and Lincoln and Bayh can feel free to disregard the will of their "centrist" constituents because those same constituents aren't paying close attention and might not notice that their senator is simply doing the bidding of the corporation lining his or her pockets. Tell them you stood up to the "extremists" in your own party and they're likely to buy it.
Again, it's the same old story and I apologize for being repetitive, and also for oversimplifying a complex phenomenon. I think the only way to even begin to change this dynamic is to push back harder against this fake "centrism" and constantly expose it for what it is: shilling for corporate interests. If there's any good from Bayh's surprise announcement today, it's that we'll soon have one fewer fake "centrist" to put up with in our caucus.