Some Members of Evan Bayh’s New Anti-Progressive Caucus Too Frightened to Admit Membership
It’s been known for a while now that Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) has been planning to form a caucus of “moderate” Senate Democrats hoping to soak up special interest cash in exchange for blocking the progressive agenda. I’m told he more formally announced the formation of this group this morning, on Morning Joe, to acclaim from Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan. It’s nice to see that Bayh isn’t even pretending that what he’s advancing is some alternative vision of progressive change—it’s something he expects, rightly, die-hard rightwingers to find pleasant. The hilarious catch, however, is that when Bayh was asked to name the members of his new Obstruction Caucus he couldn’t name them all. Apparently “three or four” members of the group are part of a Chickenshit Subcaucus who want to block the change America needs but don’t want to be publicly identified as belonging to the group! After all, Barack Obama is popular! And his agenda is popular! So if you choose to oppose it, you might face political problems. So better to keep the sabotage secret.
It’s nice work if you can get it.
For special bonus ax-grinding, note that Bayh is, along with some other members of the Obstruction Caucus, an “honorary co-chair” of Third Way which is, as we all know, a valuable partner in pushing for progressive values.
52 Responses to “Some Members of Evan Bayh’s New Anti-Progressive Caucus Too Frightened to Admit Membership”
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March 18th, 2009 at 9:32 am
so it shall be called the HTIB Caucus?
March 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Oh, snap.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Sometimes, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t read — because all I can do is think about is what an extraordinarily valued partner in pursuing the progressive agenda Third Way is. God, they’re amazing!
March 18th, 2009 at 9:36 am
So amazing, it seems, that I can’t even type a coherent sentence when I’m too busy thinking about them.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Oh yeah, and fuck Third Way, too!
March 18th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Palmieri bait.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I was just wondering this morning whether we’d be seeing more Third Way criticism from you after the last heavy handed “takeover” from your bosses. A nicely snarky entry. The real tragedy of that whole incident, though, is that we’re still left wondering if you have been instructed to pull your punches on Third Way. We’ll probably still be wondering that until you make a full throated critique, unfortunately. (And if you do, next time they should simply ask you to begin with the caveats about your views not reflecting ThinkProgress before you tear them up.)
March 18th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Just wanted to let you people know that Matt has suddenly become indisposed and may not be posting for a while. But don’t worry, we’ll have some awesome guest bloggers from Third Way filling in!
March 18th, 2009 at 9:56 am
This is the best post Matt has written in a month.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I wonder if this kind of thing is a) a effect or b) a cause of Bayh not being Obama’s running mate.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Actually, Jennifer said that Matthew’s going off on a sabbatical to brush up on his strawberry picking skills.
A long sabbatical.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Oh, well –it’ll be something to tell the fellow workers around the campfire in the evening. “Once I was a blogger in Washington DC …”
Got kinda of John Steinbeck tone to it — Of Mice and Mice.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:06 am
You really think that people who want to take bad banks into receivership, protect the environment, raise taxes on the rich to fund health care, and get out of Iraq are “extremists”? Better check the latest opinion surveys.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:09 am
THird Way? Third Way? Where have I heard that name?
Are they a Bisexual Advocacy Group?
March 18th, 2009 at 10:14 am
The Third Way is the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful progressive interest group I have ever met in my life.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Matt Bennet should be on the phone with John Podesta in 3….2….
March 18th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Evan Bayh gives me the screaming willies.
I don’t trust that guy. He’s capable of anything. I can imagine him as Martin Sheen in The Dead Zone. “The missiles are away. Halleluia, the missiles are away.”
March 18th, 2009 at 10:19 am
an “honorary co-chair” of Third Way which is, as we all know, a valuable partner in pushing for progressive values.
You better not be dissing our valuable partners Third Way — you’re damn right they’re our valued and valuable partners!!!
If you don’t wipe that smirk off your face RIGHT NOW, Matthew, you are SO FUCKING FIRED, and I MEAN IT THIS TIME !!!!
March 18th, 2009 at 10:49 am
so Bayh is the new Lieberman, eh?
this is SUCH sour grapes over not getting picked for VP. what a fucking loser this guy is. he needs to be publicly shot down, preferably by Mr. Obama himself.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Also, Bayh looks like a grownup version of the jock assholes in movies like Revenge of the Nerds. I hope he’s embarassed as the end of the session of congress when his girlfriend dumps him in front of everyone for the true progressive politician, and then he’s pushed into a swimming pool.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Sen. Bayh is moving right of the Democratic base for a future Presidential campaign, thinking the country will swing back right in response to an Obama presidency. My guess is Bayh is doing this because A) he’s a small minded loser who’s pissed he didn’t get tapped as VP in 2008 and B) he’s a half DLC/half himbo chimera the combines the good looks of Dan Qualye and the wisdom of Joe Lieberman.
Bayh will happily sabotage President Obama’s agenda all for a 2% chance he’ll be the nominee in 2016. He’s a dimwit who is wrong about everything. I wouldn’t assume he could make ice if you spotted him water and a lab in the Arctic. Wrong on Iraq, wrong on President Clinton’s budget, wrong on Obama’s agenda, Evan Bayh is a Love Canal of toxic stupidity.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Bayh makes me embarrassed to be a Hoosier.
And to everybody who thinks he needs a primary challenger: his last name is Bayh – there will be no challenger.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Tyro @ #19 wins the thread.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:45 am
It’s hard to believe this twit is the son of one of the great liberal senators of the last century, the great Birch Bayh. I hail from Birch Bayh’s (and Evan’s) hometown, and as a senior in high school I worked on Birch Bayh’s 1980 campaign when he lost his Senate seat to Dan (fucking) Quayle. I am amazed how much Evan Bayh resembles Quayle: vapid, preening, right-leaning intellectual lightweight. That pretty much describes Dick Lugar too. I guess that’s what it takes to get elected to the US Senate in Indiana.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Efforts to quash the “progressive” = “liberal” = socialistic = compulsory “compassion” = wealth redistribution = encouraged mediocrity = anti-civil rights for the pre-born = unscientific climate alarmism = enforced speech in universities agenda are, for the most part, welcome.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Joe Scarborough was so deliriously happy this morning, that’s all I picked up on. I missed the part where Senator Bayh admitted some of the Republicrats wish to remain anonymous.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
WATB Caucus
March 18th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
he’s a small minded loser who’s pissed he didn’t get tapped as VP in 2008
He would have been if Hitlery was the candidate.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Just like many of the reporters and members of the “echo chamber” JournoList Club™
March 18th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I am amazed how much Evan Bayh resembles Quayle: vapid, preening, right-leaning intellectual lightweight. That pretty much describes Dick Lugar too. I guess that’s what it takes to get elected to the US Senate in Indiana.
C’mon. Lugar is much more honorable and serious than our little Evan, who does indeed resemble Quayle in some ways. Birch Bayh was not the perfect Senator or anything else, but was/is very popular without being the vapid, fundamentally compromised, nebbish his son is. It says a lot about Evan that the lesson he took from one loss (his father’s) in a GOP sweep-year is to immediately run and simper in the corner. Practically the definition of cowardice: pre-emptive cowardice.
March 18th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
pre-emptive cowardice = The Bayh Doctrine
March 18th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
DTM Says:
March 18th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Al,
You know Obama won Indiana, right?
==============================================
So did Bayh – four times
March 18th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
#29: “That pretty much describes Dick Lugar too”
But at least Lugar has done some good on nonproliferation. Or maybe it’s just all smoke he blows in Indy to look like a statesman.
March 18th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Evan Bayh is merely making a power play to take negociating control away from the three republican deal makers. These 13 Senators are trying to inflate their influence on the Obama Administration.
Any investment in Amercian concerns NOW will benefit us in the future. Sending money to Haliburton, KBR etc that does not add to investing in America is a waste and a loss to our future generations. Investing in Education, Health, Job Training, and the Environment all add to the “Infrastructure of America”. So when the question beocomes: “How does this debit burden affect the children of the future?”….If you address the failure today at a lower cost, then tommorrow…it might be a good deal to be “leveraged”. After all that’s how Repulicans make their money…definitely not on their sweat.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:27 am
This should be turned into a diss track.
March 19th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Then again, it could all be a canny front group put up by the Dems to absorb any future backlash against the progressive agenda. All Obama has to say from here on out is that the fair and balanced third-way Bayhists have bought off on just about anything he proposes and the Morning Joe crew can just sit around holding their noses. Sometimes bloggers and their posters ought to spend a little less time reading Krugman and a little more time reading Machiavelli.
March 19th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
I wonder whether Senator Bayh’s eagerness to obstruct establishment of a decent health care system would somehow be related his wife, Susan’s, most lucrative position on the board of directors of Wellpoint, a large health profiteer??
March 20th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
There is one aspect that everyone is ignoring (or maybe you just don’t know). Look up Susan Bayh sometime. Let’s see…Mrs. Bayh received about $1 million for her work on boards, including Wellpoint, a “medical research partnership” which received a $24.7 million grant after Evan Bayh and his Indiana colleagues recommended the group to the National Institute of Health. She’s also on the board of E*Trade Bank while her husband sits on the Senate Banking Committee.
Evan Bayh may not want to lose his position during the next election, but he also doesn’t want his wife to lose those $1 million bonuses for sitting on boards. He is going to fight Obama on healthcare and other issues, not because of his constituency, but to protect his wife’s paycheck.
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