Bayh and Sell
The Indiana senator with the political pedigree is pitching himself as a moderate alternative who could win
KEENE, N.H.-Later in the day, across the state, Barack Obama will wow a crowd of 1,500 Democrats by telling them what they want to hear-that their party's moment has arrived. "America is ready to turn the page," he will say. But this morning, in a dining room in this colonial-era lumber town, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh is doling out tough love. When someone asks how he'd cut the federal deficit, Bayh says Democrats should rein in spending before rolling back President Bush's tax cuts: "We need to re-establish our fiscal responsibility." When another audience member asks how he'll persuade Americans to drive less and buy smaller cars to combat global warming, Bayh pushes back. "The key is not to ask for sacrifice for no reason," he says. "You've got to convince them the sacrifice will get the result they have every right to expect."
And when a schoolteacher gripes that Bush's No Child Left Behind law places unreasonable demands on student achievement, Bayh makes clear that he generally supports the plan. "We're asking people for money for schools," he says. "We need to ensure that more dollars translate into better education."
Bayh's challenges to liberal orthodoxy inspire more nodding admiration than enthusiastic applause. Just before leaving, though, he holds up two maps of his home state. The first, showing the counties that Bush won in 2004, when the president took 60 percent of the Indiana vote, is almost uniformly red. The other, solidly blue, shows the counties Bayh took that same year, when he was re-elected with 62 percent of the vote. "We can win in places like Indiana," he says to a round of oohs and ahhs. "We don't have to sell out to appeal to Republicans and independents. But we do have to reach out."
As Bayh plots a presidential bid for 2008, however-he formed an exploratory committee this month but says he's waiting until early next year to make an official announcement-his challenge for the next year and a half will be reaching out to activist primary voters in his own party who are skeptical of his consensus politics. And, for now, Bayh has steeper hills to climb. In a field that could include such celebrities as Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and previous presidential candidates like John Kerry and John Edwards, the junior senator from the Hoosier State is a virtual unknown. In a recent Fox News poll in which Democrats were asked to pick their top presidential choice, Bayh was tied for sixth place, with 2 percent of the vote. And yet because of his résumé-which includes two terms as Indiana governor-proven fundraising ability, and an early effort to build a serious ground game, many handicappers say Bayh is the strongest moderate Democrat looking to challenge Clinton for the '08 nomination.
Seeds. Recognizing his disadvantage in name ID, Bayh began constructing a grass-roots network for his presidential campaign more than six months ago. The centerpiece of the operation so far has been Camp Bayh, a program that hired and trained 50 field staffers to work for Democratic candidates in the run-up to last month's elections, mostly in state legislative races in Iowa and New Hampshire, where early presidential contests will occur in '08. An official with the New Hampshire Democratic Party says Bayh put more staff on the ground than any other potential presidential contender. On Election Day, Democrats reclaimed both chambers of the Granite State legislature. "Bayh was one of the major forces helping us make the sweep," says Sara Kelly, a New Hampshire state rep-elect. "I'm very grateful."
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