The Talking Points mailbag has been filling up with requests for a run-down of the potential Democratic standard-bearers for 2004. Who’s up, who’s down. All that.
One of these days I’m going to write up a long post on why a potential Evan Bayh candidacy – essentially an article of faith for many Washingtonians – is premised on an outdated view of the Democratic party, a view from an era when Democrats were so flat on their backs that they had to find their presidential candidates in states where virtually no one ever voted for Democrats
But for the moment just a preview.
Being a popular two-term Democratic governor from Indiana teaches you one thing – caution. And lots of it. But now even some of those who should be Bayh’s natural supporters for a hypothetical presidential candidacy are wondering whether that Indiana-bred caution may run so deep that he just can’t be an effective national leader in the Democratic party.
And consider one reason for those doubts. Much of Bayh’s potential presdiential cachet is based on his association with the Democratic Leadership Council (the centrist, more pro-business faction of the Democratic party) – much is often made of the fact that he’s just taken the post as chairman of the DLC, the same post Bill Clinton held when he ran for president ⦠yada, yada, yada.
But so far the DLCers cannot seem to get him to sign on to their alternative to the Bush tax plan.
So here’s what this means. Bayh is trying to position himself as the centrist Democrat for 2004. Much of this is premised on his association with the centrist, New Democrat DLC. Yet he won’t even sign on to their tax cut plan because he presumably thinks it’s too liberal.
The person who gets the nod in 2004 will be the one who can bridge the divide between the centrist and labor-liberal wings of the party. But apparently the centrist wing of the party is too far left for Evan Bayh.
Isn’t this a problem?
