For those who haven’t noticed, Evan Bayh announced officially last week that he won’t be running for president in 2004. Despite what some say, that really should not come as a surprise for several reasons. First, he is up for reelection in 2004, which makes a presidential run difficult. More important though is that he was just too far off the reservation on the Bush tax cut — and that’s a proxy for much else.
Bayh is the Chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. One of the highlights of the tax cut debate for Dems was the fact that the pro-business, centrist DLC ended up having pretty much the same position on the tax cut as the left-labor Economic Policy Institute — i.e., the two wings of the Democratic party. But Bayh wouldn’t even get on board with his own organization’s position — a real embarrassment for him and the DLCers.
