Brian Howey: The Obama-Bayh tea leaves turn to The Audition

By Brian Howey

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Speaking from behind the towering mugs of Spaten Lager at the Rathskeller restaurant on the Eve of Evan Bayh’s Elkhart Audition, Luke Messer posed this question: “What if Evan Bayh doesn’t get it? It could hurt Obama here in Indiana.”

      I could not dismiss this out of hand or mug.

      Messer is a former Republican state rep and former GOP executive director. Watching the Obama/Bayh spectacle in its long, long Dog Days sequence has become an obsession here in the Hoosier state. The reason is simple. If Bayh ascends, it changes the political landscape here. How dramatic that change will be remains to be seen. In August 1988, the nascent Bayh gubernatorial campaign was rocked when U.S. Sen. Dan Quayle won the veepstakes. That month, Bayh’s election was no sure thing. As we know, the shock/paranoia was only temporary. Bush-Quayle carried the state and nation, and Bayh defeated Lt. Gov. John Mutz by a comfortable, albeit narrow, margin.

      Bayh’s election kicked off what has become two decades of speculation on whether he can get an office in the West Wing. And he has a wide, deep following. The Indiana Democratic Party was poised to do whatever it took to get him the presidential nomination beginning in 2006. When he pulled the plug on that effort that December, just a month after it became clear that Barack Obama would be Hillary Clinton’s chief challenger, his Democratic base gasped.

      When, in September 2007, Bayh threw his veep lot with Hillary Clinton - then the “inevitable” nominee - the Hoosier pundit class thought it was a sound political move, but we had nagging doubts whether Hillary could carry Indiana amidst a broad base of Hoosier Clinton haters. When Hillary didn’t wrap it up by Super Tuesday, we wrote about “Evan Bayh’s predicament” - that instead of toiling to make a red state blue this fall, he would have to do it this spring. He brought along most of the Democratic establishment and delivered the state. Without him, Hillary would have been toast.

      If there was any momentum coming out of the Clinton-Bayh efforts in April and May, it belonged to Evan Bayh, who never said a nasty thing about Obama and who defeated the finely honed Obama model fashioned by his campaign manager, David Axelrod.  Bayh was like A.J. Foyt in the 1964 Indianapolis 500, steering through the fireballs and carnage that claimed the lives of Eddie Sachs and Dave McDonald, to win and drink the milk of victory.

      And that brings us to the here and now: the veepstakes. It is a compelling, aggravating experience for those who make the short lists and wait ... and wait ... and wait.

      The political class has experienced the ups and down, the rampant speculation, and stony silence, the head fakes and just fakes this past week. So have the Bayhphiles. Conventional wisdom, which has often been ruse in disguise, has Bayh on the shortest of short lists, with an announcement coming before the Beijing Olympics. Word came on Saturday that Barack Obama was heading to Elkhart the following week. We quickly learned of plans for a police motorcade through LaPorte County.

      Could it be? The Obama-Bayh ticket?

      Well, no one was talkin’. We could only read tea leaves, watch schedules and the movements of leaders. We checked commuter flight schedules and pondered a lengthy national media layover in South Bend. The Obama campaign, which has cost Indiana media access rights of $435 single-day bus tours and $150 turkey sandwiches, was coy. Coy to the point of cuteness; they clearly were surfing the veepstakes wave.

      This lasted until the final 36 hours when most media came to the conclusion, though hardly a solid one, that this wouldn’t end in Elkhart. There would be no trips to Shirkieville. The Bayh twins, wife and corporate director Susan, as well as grandpa Birch would remain in Washington.

      When the event finally happened, Bayh gave an animated speech in Elkhart and the two hugged briefly with Obama calling him one of the “finest U.S. Senators” before he quickly turned to energy issues.  He reminded folks that gas was $1.50 a gallon when President Bush took office.

      But at Schoop’s Diner in Portage – after sharing a bus ride across the northern corridor where the two talked family and sports – Obama and Bayh glad-handed an early afternoon crowd. A camera crew awaited the senators filming high-definition television-quality footage of the duo. Indeed, multiple cameramen operated independently of the press videographers, and without press credentials. A member of the traveling press described the unusual crew as "very expensive (and aggressive)." When Howey Politics Indiana intern Ryan Nees ended up behind Bayh and Obama, one frenetic Obama aide physically blocked him from entering what she defensively called "our shot."

      Alas, the reading of tea leaves appears to have turned into The Audition. If it doesn’t result in The Ticket, there are going to be a lot of disappointed Hoosier Bayhphiles, and Obama might just see his Hoosier Blue State hopes slide away. 

Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com.

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