Tuesday's Starting Lineup
Good Tuesday morning, and happy Mardi Gras. We're giving up waking up early for Lent.
Here's today's Starting Lineup, previewing the people who will matter this news cycle:
SEN. EVAN BAYH: Bayh's decision not to seek a 3rd term, announced yesterday, has Dems across the country reeling as they consider whether their majority in the upper chamber is now at risk. Bayh seemed to have it all -- great poll numbers, a hefty $13M in the bank and a centrist profile that would have made him a lock for re-election.
But he was sick of Congress. "I simply reached the conclusion that I could get more done ... by doing something in the private sector," Bayh said this morning on "Good Morning America."
Now, Dems are likely left to fill the spot with a candidate after the filing deadline. Rep. Brad Ellsworth has gotten most of the buzz, but Dems will need a top candidate if they are going to keep a seat in what remains a red state. GOPers don't have the best possible contender -- ex-Sen. Dan Coats (R) has had a rough roll-out, and ex-Rep. John Hostettler (R) has never raised the kind of money that would let him compete on a state-wide level.
SENATE MAJ. LEADER HARRY REID: Bayh is the 3rd senator -- along with Sens. Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) -- to cite the lack of comity and bipartisanship in their exits. Sources told Roll Call's David Drucker that Reid's decision to pull a bipartisan jobs bill from consideration played a role in Bayh's thinking, and Bayh has used his retirement announcement to put down those on both extremes.
"The extremes of both parties have to be willing to accept compromises," Bayh said this morning. "All too often recently, we've been getting nothing."
Reid, and counterpart Senate Min. Leader Mitch McConnell, have been a part of pushing their own agendas above bipartisan compromise. To each party, bipartisanship is what happens when the other guy gives something up. Dems have quietly begun questioning Reid's leadership, and contributions to colleagues from Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) suggest they are lining up for a possible battle to replace Reid, if he doesn't win re-election. One question Dem Sens considering their votes might ask is whether Schumer or Durbin are willing to work across the aisle more than has been the norm lately.
TEA PARTIERS: A group of grassroots leaders will head to the RNC today to sit down with RNC chair Michael Steele, the Washington Post reports this morning, looking for ways the 2 sets can work together. Organizers insist the Tea Party movement will not fold in to the GOP, but they fit ideologically, especially as the party focuses on spending.
Tea Party partisans will also play a major role at CPAC, which kicks off later this week and which will feature a number of prominent Tea Party favorites giving major addresses. As in '94, when 80% of Ross Perot backers voted GOP, the party has to find a way to bring those activists who are fed up with the GOP back home -- a point Gov. Haley Barbour, the RNC chair in '94, made in an interview with your friendly OnCall editor last week.
The burbling discontent with DC has pundits wondering -- yet again -- if this is the moment when a viable 3rd party can emerge. Early rumors after Bayh's retirement concerned whether he would make a 3rd-party challenge from the middle, a notion he knocked down by avowing support for Pres. Obama and expressing confidence Obama would be re-elected in '12. But, he admitted this morning on "GMA": "There's some prospect for a 3rd party-type movement."
The importance of winning over Tea Partiers to the GOP was underscored this weekend, when a Tea Party candidate won ballot access in the race against Reid in NV. Reid has always had a narrow path to victory, but in opening a new outlet for voter anger in the form of a 3rd party contender, Reid's path is now just slightly wider.