The news that Democrat Evan Bayh was entering the Indiana Senate race prompted election watchers to label the once-safe contest for Republicans a toss up.
No one needs to give the GOP the memo.
Bayh, the former Hoosier governor and senator, is mounting a last-minute bid to rescue the Democrats’ chances of stealing outgoing Republican senator Dan Coats’s seat. CNN’s Monday report was accompanied by an announcement from onetime congressman and Democratic nominee Baron Hill that he was exiting the race, ending an underfunded, underwhelming campaign that was a longshot to upend Republican candidate Todd Young in the fall.
Immediately, what had been a cinch for the GOP became a real fight, prompting rapid response from Young’s camp, Coats, and other piqued Hoosier Republicans.
“After he cast the deciding vote for Obamacare, Evan Bayh left Indiana families to fend for themselves so he could cash-in with insurance companies and influence peddlers as a gold-plated lobbyist,” Young’s campaign manager Trevor Foughty told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “This seat isn’t the birthright of a wealthy lobbyist from Washington, it belongs to the people of Indiana.”
Coats hit on a similar theme, tying Bayh to President Obama and saying it was time for fresh blood in Washington. “It is time for a new generation to represent Hoosiers in the Senate,” the retiring senator said Monday afternoon.
That generational gap was not lost on Indiana GOP leaders, one of whom joked that Bayh, 60, whose most prominent years overlapped with a Bush or a Clinton in the White House, gave the election a retro feel. One state party official told TWS, “It’s like I Love the 90s, Indiana Politics Edition.”
The Democrat Bayh is succeeding in the race, Hill, is also on the other side of 60. That contrasts with the 43-year-old Young, a wonky conservative whose reputation is more policy-oriented than politics-obsessed.
Republicans may make the case Bayh’s age and decades of holding public office are a drag, but the flip side is he’s a familiar face to Hoosier voters, as well as a callback to a more moderate time in Democratic politics. He’s won five statewide contests: one as secretary of state, two as governor, and two as U.S. senator. During his career in Washington, he chaired the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, cofounded the now-defunct Moderate Dems Working Group, and had a hand in creating the think tank Third Way. In a statement issued Monday, Bayh harked back to that bipartisan spirit, saying he and Hill “both believe that we must send leaders to Washington who will put Hoosiers’ interests ahead of any one political party.”
Bunch that success, track record for a state as conservative as Indiana, and his impressive war chest—exceeding $9 million at the end of March, significantly more than the $1.1 million cash on hand Young reported in April—and many political analysts are convinced that the election now could go either way.
For all the hype Bayh’s entry generated Monday, though, observers stressed the “either way” angle.
“This is not to suggest that Bayh’s candidacy is a sure thing. He’s been out of the campaign business for six years and his previous comments about Congress are going to be a good talking point for his opponent,” said Geoffrey Skelley, associate editor of Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, in reference to a comment Bayh made in 2010 about his dislike of the country’s legislature. “I love helping our citizens make the most of their lives, but I do not love Congress,” Bayh stated in announcing his decision to forego reelection.
An Indiana Republican observed Monday that Bayh’s aversion seems to have lasted into this year.
“At the filing deadline for United States Senate, Evan Bayh did not want to be United States senator,” Craig Dunn, a delegate to the Republican National Convention and party chairman of the state’s Fourth Congressional District, told TWS. Dunn tried to paint Bayh as out-of-touch with Indiana voters—not for his politics, but for his wealth and the value of his onetime Washington home.
“We suffered through twelve years of his being the senator ‘from’ Indiana and not ‘for’ Indiana,” Dunn continued.
Linking a Democrat to the Obama agenda, calling him over the hill and detached from the voters, a creature of the nation’s capital at a time anti-establishment fever is at its peak—sounds like the GOP playbook.
And Republicans have been forced to actually use it now that Democrats have a credible candidate in Indiana.
