The VP Lotto: Evan Bayh

Rumor has it that the Obama shortlist has been pared down to just four names: Delaware Senator Joe Biden, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. I'm going to try and post a mini-profile of each of their hypothetical candidacies before the end of next week, or Obama selects someone, whichever comes first. Up today is the Junior Senator from Indiana.

Senator Obama was set to arrive in South Bend about three hours ago, and isn't scheduled to leave until after 3:30 tomorrow. The primary event he has scheduled is a town hall meeting in Elkhart, where he is set to be introduced by Sen. Bayh. This twenty-one hour swing-state marathon has set the local press ablaze with speculation that their hometown boy is going to be The One's One.

To a large degree, Obama couldn't have a more obvious choice. You can go down the line of criteria for an Obama pick and check the boxes off with me: he supported Hillary Clinton during the primaries, is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has served as both a Senator and Governor, and has been in politics long enough to gain experience, but not too long to be seen as an old hand. In terms of defusing criticism from the right, Obama could hardly do better.

While it is chic during the Veepstakes portion of an election summer to talk about a potential running mate bringing in a swing state, this sort of electoral math is usually all hype with no hope. Bayh may present an interesting exception. In a state that Obama has already put in play, Bayh left office as governor with a nearly 80% approval rating, and was elected to his Senate seat with the highest percentage of the vote that a Indiana Democrat has ever received. The Bayh family has long been a staple of Indiana government; if anyone can hand deliver a swing-state this year, it's him.

On the other hand, Bayh served as Chair of the Democratic Leadership Council from 2001 to 2005, and is in many ways a centrist noticably to the right of Senator Obama. He is a fiscal conservative and the man behind the largest tax cut in Indiana history. He was an early and vocal supporter of the 2003 Iraq invasion, and still has yet to renounce that support. A candidate running on the mantle of "against the war from the beginning" is going to look a little silly with a running-mate who refers to a sixteen-month exit strategy as "cut-and-run."

Iraq is not the only arena in which Mr. Bayh's hawkish instincts are revealed. From his strong, almost Likudist disdain for the Palastinian Authority to his support of the Liberman-Kyl amendment to decree the Iranian Quds to be a terrorist organization (a position taken by Senator Clinton that Obama roundly criticized), Bayh's foreign policy positions have more in common with McCain's than they do with Obama's. Trade is one of the few international topics they agree on, and only because Bayh is in the center and Obama as usual is on both sides.

Finally, there is the nagging fact that Bayh isn't up for re-election this year, and if the Obama/Bayh ticket was a winner, the job of appointing a Senatorial replacement would fall to Republican Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. Putting Bayh on the ticket would require sacrificing a Senate seat in a year where a sixty-seat filibuster-proof majority, while highly unlikely, is at least within plausible reach. Waking up on November 5th to an Obama landslide and a 59-seat Democratic Senate majority would look awfully stupid.

A Bayh selection would indicate that Obama has greater worries about attracting independents than he does retaining Democrats, though Bayh also goes a good way toward appeasing Clinton partisans. He's the "safe" pick this time around, and if he is chosen that means that all politics aside, Obama is more concerned with the polling he's looking at than he appears. Bayh is the current favorite on the Intrade Prediction Market, and for good reason. A perennial shortlister, this might finally be his year.