Evan Bayh, clinging to guns and religion.

This morning, on Fox News Sunday:

Well, look, Bill obviously noticed, the Wall Street Journal editorial page will notice, you can go into Michigan, put a gun to the head of the people going into these caucuses and no one will be able tell you the specifics of Romney's economic plan, or very few. But they do get a gut sense is this someone who is a leader with big idea who can try and lead this country in a better direction. God love him, he just hasn't been able to communicate that yet.

Gun to the head... God love him... What's wrong with that man?

David Axelrod "would love to live in a world where the president could snap his fingers or even twist arms and make change happen..."

So, an autocracy? That would be swell?

...but in this great democracy of ours, that’s not the way it is.

Damn! This terrible democracy. Oops, I mean this great democracy of ours.

That's from a NYT article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg that's mostly about Barack Obama's lack of skill in getting members of Congress to do what he wants. It begins with a description of a January 15th meeting in the White House, in which Obama was "playing 'marriage counselor'" with various members of Congress. Supposedly, "he coaxed, cajoled and prodded them," but in the end people, including Obama, were frustrated and angry. Stolberg then analyzes Obama's ability:

Ever since his days as a young community organizer in Chicago, Mr. Obama has held fast to the belief that by listening carefully and appealing to reason he can bring people together to get results, an approach that in Washington has often come up short.

He's dealing with members of Congress, not local Chicago people. Why would his listen-and-reason approach translate easily to this new environment? Maybe he should have taken a little time to work in the Senate and get to know its ways and its characters before deciding he was ready to be President.

Mr. Obama has not been the sort to bludgeon his party into following his lead or to intimidate reluctant legislators. And while he has often succeeded by relying on Democratic leaders in Congress to do his bidding — the House and Senate, after all, both passed versions of the health legislation last year — it is not clear whether his gentle, consensus-building style will be enough.

Stolberg tries to burnish the Obama image, but read between the lines: The point there is that he hasn't led. Stolberg quotes Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a New York Democrat: “If you are asking me if he dominates the room, I would have to say no.”

But his defenders and some historians say that perhaps more than any modern president since Lyndon B. Johnson, Mr. Obama has been aggressive in trying to work his will with Congress. During his 13-month-old presidency, he has had countless one-on-one meetings with lawmakers — a technique that some scholars and strategists say evokes memories of Johnson...

But he's not much like Johnson. Johnson was quite a different sort of character, but he'd developed his skills by operating in the Senate for 12 years.

Members of Congress do not find him intimidating; they are more apt, said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, to view him as “a friend.”...

“He always starts off with a policy argument, making the intellectual case for his point of view,” [Senator Evan] Bayh said. “Secondarily to that, there might be a discussion of some of the political ramifications, but he always starts off with, ‘Look, this is why I think this is right for the country, and I respect your point of view, I know where you are coming from, but here’s why I think we need to do it this way. Can you help me?’ ”

And why should that be enough? Do a ritual of listening and calmly laying out reasons, then tell people — nicely! — what you'd "need" them to do. I guess the members of Congress don't take orders, even if the President is nice and friendly and even if it worked in Chicago. They really do represent people in this great democracy of ours, and they quite properly stand their ground in the face of the President's ambition. It's called separation of powers.

***

A reading for the day. From The Federalist Papers, Number 51:

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Slogging through Evan Bayh's NYT op-ed "Why I'm Leaving the Senate"...

... so you don't have to. Here's the text. Let me edit it down and supply a little commentary:

BASEBALL may be our national pastime... Ben Franklin...  David Letterman... Milton Berle...

Man, that first paragraph telegraphs that the man has nothing to say!

Challenges of historic import... Congress ... dysfunction...

Many good people serve in Congress...

I don't want to attack any particular individual, but as a group, you people suck.

My father, Birch Bayh...

Everett Dirksen... asked what he could do to help...

A Republican displayed cooperativeness toward a Democrat, back in the old days.

When I was a boy, members of Congress from both parties, along with their families, would routinely visit our home for dinner or the holidays...

The parties partied. Back then. Chez Bayh.

... Sept. 11.... There were no Republicans or Democrats in the room that day...

That golden day...

Let’s start with a simple proposal: why not have a monthly lunch of all 100 senators? 

Sounds good, but I'm not that hungry.

... the current campaign finance system that has such a corrosive effect on Congress....

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, allowing corporations and unions to spend freely on ads explicitly supporting or opposing political candidates, will worsen matters. The threat of unlimited amounts of negative advertising from special interest groups will only make members more beholden to their natural constituencies and more afraid of violating party orthodoxies.

Help! All that vigorous free speech will make us even bigger pussies than we already are!

... the Senate should reform... the filibuster....

Admittedly, I have participated in filibusters. If not abused, the filibuster can foster consensus-building...

.... filibusters should require 35 senators to sign a public petition and make a commitment to continually debate... Those who obstruct the Senate should pay a price in public notoriety and physical exhaustion....

And, eventually, we will be hungry enough to eat 100 Senators for lunch.

What’s more, the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster should be reduced to 55 from 60....

During my father’s era, filibusters were commonly used to block civil rights legislation and, in 1975, the requisite number of votes was reduced to 60 from 67. The challenges facing the country today are so substantial that further delay imperils the Republic and warrants another reduction in the supermajority requirement.

The challenge = Scott Brown got elected... and a couple very elderly Dems are not feeling so well. And the majority of Americans don't like what you're trying to do, so you need to get this thing through before the next election. That's like the Civil Rights Act, isn't it?!

"The real story, of which Mr. Bayh's frustration is merely the latest sign, is the failure once again of liberal governance."

"For the fourth time since the 1960s, American voters in 2008 gave Democrats overwhelming control of both Congress and the White House. Republicans haven't had such large majorities since the 1920s. Yet once again, Democratic leaders have tried to govern the country from the left, only to find that their policies have hit a wall of practical and popular resistance."

Q: "So is the battle of Tippecanoe the most important historical event that ever took place in Indiana?" A: "That and the birth of Evan Bayh."

A conversation that took place this past Saturday in front of this mural...



... in the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, in Lafayette, Indiana.

And now, Evan Bayh is moving on from the Senate to... ???.

Evan Bayh bye.

Bye bye.

ADDED: I'm watching the press conference streaming at C-SPAN.

AND: He's saying Congress is too partisan and can't get things done. "I do not love Congress." The qualities he has are "not highly valued in Congress." He, we're to believe, is a leader, and so, he does not belong in Congress. He's positioning himself to run for President, right?

ALSO: "If Washington could be more like Indiana, it would be a better place." I agree! We were just in Indiana over the weekend, and I love Hoosiers.

IN THE COMMENTS: Deirdre Mundy said:

Hmmm.. Althouse and Meade take a whirlwind trip to Indiana, and the following day, Bayh retires.....

Coincidence? Doubtful....

Ha ha. And while we were in Indiana, we talked about Evan Bayh in the shadow of a mural depicting a U.S. President. I am seeing Bayh lying in wait to take down Obama in 2012. Someone serious needs to be ready to do that if Obama's failure becomes too horribly conspicuous or if — remember my long-shot prediction? — Obama chooses not to run.

Evan Bayh: "if you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call, there’s no hope of waking up."

“[M]oderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message. They just don’t believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems. That’s something that has to be corrected.... Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country— that’s not going to work too well.”

In short, the Democrats have gone way left of the American people, and they need to come back.