Saturday, July 08, 2006

Bayhding Our Time

I see Evan Bayh is still running for prez:

JOHNSTON, Iowa - In a quiet, methodical style reflecting his Midwestern roots, Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record) is laying the foundation for a presidential campaign and prompting some Democrats to talk about a candidate with a realistic shot.

"The chatter that you hear is that he's a good guy and nice and he has that honest, Midwestern feel to him, kind of like Harry Truman," said veteran Democratic strategist Dane Strother. "That's all appealing."

In his fifth trip to Iowa in the last year, the centrist Indiana Democrat opened a three-day swing Thursday with a fundraiser in downtown Des Moines for legislative candidates. He mingled easily with about 50 party activists for more than an hour and made a point of chatting with everyone in the room.

"He's a Midwesterner and that will help him in Iowa," said state Senate Democratic leader Michael Gronstal. "It's up to him to sell himself, and so far he's been fairly impressive."


A little more than a month ago Bayh said:

Bayh said if the Iraqi factions “get their political act together — and we will know this in the next six to eight weeks… if they can form a government… then there’s something to work with there.” If not, then “we’re out.”


Since then roughly 55 more members of the US military have died, and 1600 or more Iraqis have died in Baghdad alone. Bayh was rather unclear about what his metric for success was, and he's got a couple more weeks before his time is up, but at some point I would hope that getting their act together would involve things actually getting better.