Senator Evan Bayh’s resignation weakens Democrats before elections.  New calculations reduce party’s hopes of retaining Senate control as mood shifts.

Chris McGreal in Washington guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 February 2010 19.53 GMT Article history

The Democrats today suffered a further blow in the runup to the midterm Congressional elections after another of the party's senators, Evan Bayh of Indiana, announced he will stand down.

The resignation greatly weakens the Democrats' chances of holding on to the seat, which will now become a prime target of the Republican campaign to win back control of the Senate in November.

Bayh, a former state governor who was considered a possible vice-presidential running mate for Barack Obama, denied that his decision not to run again after 12 years in the Senate was prompted by the declining popularity of the Democrats amid continuing popular disillusionment over the economy.

But it will contribute to the perception that the party is on the retreat as he becomes the fifth Democratic party senator to stand down, while others are fighting to retain seats that they won four years ago.

Bayh, 54, had until recently been favoured to retain his seat. Opinion polls showed that he remained personally popular with Indiana voters, after winning re-election in 2006 with 60% of the vote, and he had a large election campaign fund put at about $13m.

But Bayh’s standing had eroded recently amid a wider backlash against the Democrats, principally driven by the continuing economic depression, that cost the party what had been considered the safe Senate seat for Massachusetts last month.

Bayh said that his desire to serve in Congress had “waned”. He denied that he was leaving because of the Democrats’ declining popularity and instead blamed the frustration of partisan political gridlock.

“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,” he said. The Democrats are defending a 59-41 majority in the Senate after losing the Massachusetts seat.

Until the Massachusetts upset, Democratic strategists believed that three or four of the party’s 18 seats up for election in November might be vulnerable.

But the loss of what had been considered a liberal stronghold, and the political energy that has injected into the Democrats’ opponents – both Republican loyalists and those activists, such as within the Tea Party movement, with a strong dislike of Obama – has changed the equation.

The Cook Political Report, a widely respected assessor of Congressional elections, says that two of the 18 Democratic seats up for grabs are definite Republican wins, five are too close to call and three others are vulnerable.

The loss of all 10 seats that the Republicans have a chance of winning would hand them control of the Senate.

The Cook report recently moved Bayh’s seat to the vulnerable list. Among the other Democrats fighting to hold on to their seats is the party’s leader in the Senate, Harry Reid.

Four other Democratic senators and six Republicans have so far announced they will not seek re-election.

via Senator Evan Bayh’s resignation weakens Democrats before elections | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Just the fact that there is a genuine race for this seat in Massachusetts is big news by itself.  (Massachusetts is about as liberal as a population can be outside of Europe.) 

Now the Republican candidate, Scott Brown is not what I would call a perfect conservative, but this is Massachusetts, and if elected Scott Browns senate vote can put a stop to government health care and Cap’n Tax. 

Even is Brown loses by a small margin it will strike fear into the hearts of democrats across the country.  It’s Massachusetts, it’s Ted Kennedy’s seat, democrats own Congress, Obama-care is sooo close; if the democrats lose this one – it’s huge.

Obama’s handlers will become more visible as they try to push the progressive agenda ahead further. 

We’re pushing a crazed, frenzied political animal into a corner.  This animal is not going to slink away, it will fight back.  The up side will be that it will be revealed for the dangerous self serving creature it is.  The down side is that it might take some desperate steps to fight back.  People, institutions, reputations may get hurt in the process. 

Good luck Scott Brown – I hope you have a decisive victory there in Massachusetts.

Then they decided to bring terrorists imprisoned in Guantanimo to stand trial in civilian court; necessitating release of national security secrets to prosecute these bastards. 

In November another terrorist (this one a US Army officer) blows away 13+ soldiers.  The prez told us to not rush to judgement.  Since then, we’ve discovered that there were dozens of red flags all over this ass, but because of political correctness, (we certainly wouldn’t want to offend anyone), it will be handled as a domestic crime – not an act of terrorism.

And now the jerk that tried to take down that plane on Christmas; His own father warned the FBI that he was concerned that his son had become radicalized and was concerned what he might do.  He studied at Terror-U with the same al quaeda trainer as the guy in Ft Hood.  He bought a one way ticket, with cash.  Geez, have we learned anything since 9/11? 

Well, here’s what I’ve learned.  The Obama administration has more regard for terrorists than for American citizens.  Our national security policy is something like – every man for himself, and if you’re an American citizen, there probably shouldn’t be any witnesses to you fighting for your life, or you will go to court.

The worst enemies of America hold political office in America.

God help us.

“Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

What kind of crap is this?  Is the Whitehouse telling me that I no longer actually have a right to free speech?  Or are they just afraid that the message explaining that the only way this government health-care can possibly be funded is by rationing care.  You must have heard Obama speaking to a group and explaining how some old lady needing a hip replacement should instead receive pain pills and end of life counseling.  How much clearer can he make it?

And what about Obama’s health-care advisers (not cabinet members, but untouchable czars and advisers.)  They include Zeke Emanuel (who is also the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) wrote an entire article on this subject in the Lancet on January 31, 2009. Emanuel advocated allocating health resources in order to maximize collective life years. Suppose a 25-year-old and a 65-year-old have a life threatening disease. Since the 25-year-old has many more potential years of life ahead of him, he should receive preferential treatment, says Emanuel.  If that doesn’t stink of eugenics (social engineering – also see Nazi Germany), well, it does.

Oh, how about Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren?  He’s the guy who wants to put a sterilizing agent in our drinking water! 

Holy Crap!  The ugliness of this administration is really coming into view.

I’m a radical?  I’m a danger to the country?  Those courageous people taking their Senators and Congressmen to task at townhall meetings, demanding explanation and clarification from their representatives are extremeists?  I don’t think so.

Barney Frank just earned another notch on his bully belt.  Congressman Frank was giving a speech at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. While Congressman Frank was taking questions from the audience, a student confronted the congressman about the extent of his role in the financial crisis.

Frank totally dodged the question and instead started to attack the student.  The student actually did a pretty good job, reminding the congressman of his position of a public representative and his own as a student asking a question.

Barney Frank came off really bad.  (It was shameful how the audience took the congressmans side though) 

So, dirtballs like Barney Frank are just fine and dandy making backroom deals, making promises, breaking promises, saying one thing doing another, but don’t you DARE ask them to explain himself! 

I hope the folks in the 4th district of Massachusetts vote this ass out of office at the earliest opportunity.

American citizens from coast to coast are beginning to stir, they are finding their voice and demanding to be heard! 

This really quite exciting to be a part of it, to experience the energy, to watch it all come together. 

While it’s great to see all the activity, it’s important to note that we’ve only begun.  We need to keep stirring the bucket, talking to friends and co-workers, attending rallies, calling Congress. 

I can see we’re already having some effect.  Arlen Specter has said that he will NOT support the Card Check Bill; that’s huge.  We now have enough on the right side (assuming we all stick together on this) and filibuster and kill it.

We better rattle the cages of the folks still in support of Obama – the cost of this Cap and Trade baloney is a killer; and it will do nothing to adjust the climate one way or another.  The only adjustment will be learning to live without heat and lights.

Remember, this is what Obama said about Cap and Trade when he was running for office. 

The problem is not technical, and the problem is not sufficient mastery of the legislative intricacies of Washington. 

The problem is can you get the American people to say this is really important and force their representatives to do the right thing? That requires mobilizing a citizenry. That requires them understanding what is at stake, and climate change is a great example. 

When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas…you name it…whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retro-fit their operations.

That will cost money…they will pass that money on to the consumers. You can already see what the arguments are going to be during the general election.  People will say Obama and Al Gore …these folks…they’re going to destroy the economy. 

This is going to cost us 8 trillion dollars or whatever their number is.  If you can’t persuade the American people that, yes,  there is going to be  some increase on electricity rates on the front end, but that over the long term, because of combinations of more efficient energy usage and changing light bulbs and more efficient appliances, but also technology improving how we can produce clean energy that the economy will benefit. 

If we can’t make that argument persuasively enough, you can be Lyndon Johnson.  You can be the master of Washington.  You’re not gonna get that done.