Evan Bayh's name has come up before in talk about the 2008 Presidential race. He was thought of as an outlier candidate two years ago but he never officially started a campaign. Now that Barack Obama is going to be the nominee, his name is back in the spotlight for consideration of the VP pick. As the date for the text message nears, I am just a little bit nervous that he would be the one Obama picks.
There are many objections to Bayh and more desirable candidates as well. First of all Senator Bayh's replacement would be picked by a Republican Governor and partisanship will immediately reduce our Senate majority by two (one Dem gone, one more Repub). Secondly, Bayh is a DLC centrist and Iraq war apologist. We certainly do not a need a blue dog as Vice President. Finally Obama has his own brand and Bayh doesn't scream "Change!" to me. Obama needs a neutral pick and the Indiana Senator is not it.
So what do we do about it?
At about 2am last night after a gig in Austin, we launched 100,000 Strong Against Evan Bayh for VP on Facebook. We have about 99,000 to go but we are growing at the rate of about 100 names per hour now.
For the record -- I would support Barack Obama if he picked a turnip as his running mate, but since so much of Obama's candidacy is rooted in Obama's willingness to listen to his supporters, this might be a real chance to help make sure that he doesn't.
And if you aren't on Facebook, write an email, write a hand-written letter or even a phone call to the campaign. We got Obama's attention on FISA (yeah I know it didn't work out as well as we had hoped) and we can do it for this. Tell the campaign you want to see Wes Clark, Tom Daschle, even Al Gore (not that he'd accept of course) or anyone that does not have the problems that Bayh does. When I get that text message, I want to see another name on it.
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