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THE UNDENIABLE LOGIC OF EVAN BAYH AND BEN NELSON.
The President's budget also passed the Senate last night. Zero Republican votes. Two Democratic defectors. Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson. Interestingly, other senators you might associate with their precise position on the ideological spectrum -- Lincoln and Landrieu and Pryor and Carper -- voted for the budget.
In other words, if you had run an algorithm using past voting records to predict last night's roll call, you wouldn't have ended with Nelson and Bayh on their lonesome. But if you had run an algorithm using the amount of press a given Democratic senator has received for being willing to buck the President, you would have. Some wags are noting that none of Bayh's much-heralded Caucus voted with him. But that's precisely why Bayh voted against -- because no one else was.
This was, in a strange sense, the safe play. Because the budget only requires 50 votes, their opposition didn't seriously imperil the President's budget. If eight more Democrats had signed on, it would have, and there would have been consequences. But the consequences of ineffectual opposition are all positive. Bayh and Nelson have elevated their status as the Democrats willing to imperil the President's priorities. They've assured that the media will say the names "Bayh and Nelson" a lot. They've secured themselves a steady stream of requests to appear on news shows and many calls begging for a quote. They have further cemented their status as power brokers in a closely divided Senate and media stars in a conflict-hungry news environment. It's really a very good day for them.
COMMENTS (8)
You've lived in the beltway too long. First, it's impossible to call a 17-seat gap in a 100 person body as 'close'. You can count on 1 hand the number of congresses with a bigger gap than that. If Democrats can't get things done in that environment, they don't want to. I know that's a fact you guys in the elite are desperately trying to prevent from coming to light, how can you play this shell game of 'D Vs R' if people realize the same people run both parties, but it's obvious to the rest of us.
Second, The simplist answer for this behaviour is simply that Evan Bayh is a conservative. Being that he is a conservative, I'm not sure why you need another explanation. I'm sure you want one, as I've said before you really really really really don't want people to realize that there's no appreciable differences between the parties (insane and evil isn't actually worse than sane and evil). But come on, reality is staring everyone in the face.
Posted by: soullite | April 3, 2009 11:16 AM
Bayh has always been a bit of an attention-seeker, but for Nelson this is kind of new. He used to be a quiet conservative Democrat, never really seeking out attention for it. I wonder what's changed with him.
Posted by: djw | April 3, 2009 11:18 AM
Have you considered that Nelson might have voted out of principle? DJW is right: Nelson's history is one of being a quiet conservative Democrat. I don't think that has changed. He's not running for re-election. He certainly doesn't need or, I'd wager, want the attention. As shocking as it sounds, he really might just disagree with the President on this one.
Posted by: Vermonstrous | April 3, 2009 11:25 AM
soullite, i realize that cheap cynicism is always in fashion, but if you don't understand the difference between republican governance and democratic governance, i feel very sorry for your judgement.
the democrats may not be the party i'd like them to be, but they are not authoritarian thugs. the republicans are.
i think nelson is just a democrat by accident, btw, but bayh clearly sees a market opportunity to replace joe lieberman on the talk shows.
Posted by: howard | April 3, 2009 11:32 AM
This raises the strategic question: Wouldn't it have benefited the White House to have asked two arbitrary liberal Senators with mavericky profiles -- Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold, say -- to also vote against the budget on the grounds that it's not progressive enough or somesuch? This would reduce the media emphasis on the Bayh/Nelson axis (and replace it with the always-helpful "Obama: Not Liberal Enough?" storyline), and render the Bayh/Nelson complaints pretty nonsensical, since the budget can't simultaneously be both too liberal AND insufficiently liberal, and we all know that the Politico -- er, the POLITICO -- won't really cover anything that they can't squeeze into a single narrative.
Obama always benefited during the campaign from being hard to pin down; the GOP could never seem to decide exactly what their message about him would be. (Socialist! Secret Conservative! Devout Muslim! Atheist! Too Black! Too White!) I see no reason we shouldn't encourage this same dynamic while he's in office.
Posted by: Dan Munz | April 3, 2009 11:40 AM
I just thought Nelson didn't want anything that might include a reconciliation option as it might mean no one is going to kiss his obsequious ass.
Obsequious to the insurance industry that is.
Posted by: ThomasEn | April 3, 2009 2:02 PM
TRY TO! Not TRY AND! You're an editor?
Posted by: K | April 3, 2009 2:40 PM
Agreeing with K above: TRY TO!
Not "TRY AND!"
And Bayh is a weasel taking money hand over fist from industries who fear Obama's health care proposals. Do more on that, please.
Bayh and his 15-or-so Demopublican cronies make me sick. This is not what the nation voted for when we voted for Obama.
Posted by: Ankhorite | April 3, 2009 7:24 PM