Canthook

Evan Bayh on Wednesday morning.

Wait. Aren't there supposed to be three elements? Colonel Mustard, with the lead pipe, in the conservatory?

Bill Browning declared about 90 minutes ago on his Bilerico Project blog that it's going to be announced on Wednesday. Evan Bayh will be Barack Obama's running mate.

Why?

Well, he points out that Chris Cillizza has positioned Bayh at the top of the heap for a few weeks now.

Bill figures that with the Olympics starting Friday, he wants the announcement out of the way. Obama has a campaign stop in Elkhart on Tuesday with Evan Bayh in attendance, and the campaign is telling the press to plan on sticking around until Wednesday afternoon. Indiana is surrounded by Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky, all of which would otherwise be fairly close battles.

The website ObamaBayh08.com is already taken, and until recently diverted traffic to the DNC website. This is less impressive than other indications; you can register a domain name for the price of a meal at McDonalds.

Bill also got an invite for a Wednesday event that isn't on Obama's published calendar. According to Bill's blog post, The campaign said, "I can't tell you what the event is about, but we want to make sure you have a ticket so you can cover it for the Bilerico Project. We want Bilerico Project to be there for this one."

I have to admit that when this election season started, I figured that the GOP would have no chance to win, due to the Halliburton Presidency. I looked around the Democratic candidates, and Evan Bayh is the one that struck me as the best man for the job.

Indiana is an overwhelmingly Republican state. At one point a few years ago, every elective post, statewide or higher, was held by a Republican. Despite this, Evan Bayh has been incredibly popular. He started out as the son of a highly popular senator, Birch Bayh.

Back when Lyndon Johnson was getting us waist deep in the big muddy of Vietnam, Birch Bayh was a maverick in the Democratic party, opposing that needless slaughter.

It also helps that Bayh pere and Bayh fils have come across as honest men, unwilling to tap the public till, unwilling to engage in sexual dalliances, and even so brutally honest as to take difficult questions and give honest answers. Undoubtedly, some of this is mere mystique - but the Bayh family is highly respected. Nobody's perfect - but the only thing about the Bayh family that's ever smelled to high heaven has been their hog farm in Shirkiesville.

And then there's his mom. Marvella was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1971, when Evan was 16, and she died April 24, 1979. Losing your mother early matures one.

Before Bayh became a US Senator, he served as Indiana governor. About a week before he won his first term as governor, his opponent, with the name of Mutz, gave a radio interview. Evan Bayh, he said, is exactly the kind of young man we should encourage to go into public service. He's intelligent, he's got good character, he has common sense. The only reason you should vote for me, his opponent said, is that Evan isn't seasoned. Give him another eight years, and there'll be no reason at all to vote against him.

But even then, the handwriting was on the wall. The Indiana voters were prepared to sweep him into office, and if he ran into trouble, well, it was just a matter of asking his dad for help. He could do it.

So I was excited to see him enter the primaries. And I was aghast to see him drop out in about two days, if memory serves. The excuse given was that he couldn't get the financial support he needed.

I'm wondering if it wasn't that he got a better deal. He was an early Hillary supporter, and there was lots of talk that he appeared to be on the short list of VP candidates on a Hillary-topped ticket.

Actually, I'd rather see Evan running as VP on the GOP ticket. McCain probably has a better chance of winning in November than he has of living four more years if he's President. It's going to be critically important for McCain to have someone acceptable as his VP.

For Obama, not so much. And since nobody since Martin Van Buren has moved directly from the VP slot to the Presidency through an election, rather than the President vacating the office, it's not really a job you'd wish on someone you admire.

Not worth a bucket of warm piss, John Nance Garner said. He regretted serving as VP to FDR for the rest of his life.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Barack Obama - Birch Bayh - Evan Bayh - running mate