“Where we need to get to,” Bayh continues, “is convincing a few folks who’ve become accustomed to voting like this [cue red map] instead to give us a shot and vote like this [cue blue map]. And it’s not by selling out and becoming Republicans. It’s by reaching out, and convincing them that we have what it takes to meet the challenges that they see in their lives: better health care, better schools, better jobs, a more intelligent national-security policy for this country. That’s what the American people are hungry for.”
John Edwards-ish
It’s an appealing message — Clintonian, even — and Bayh is an appealing messenger. (Like Clinton, Bayh is a former chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, and Clinton once said he hoped he’d be voting for Bayh for president someday. He may have changed his mind.) During the Young Democrats brunch, Bayh delivered his speech with the drowsy, affable self-assurance of a frat president — and he looked the part, too: well-coiffed hair parted slightly to the right, blue blazer, open-necked white shirt, speckled brown-and-yellow pants.
Afterward, Kate Vaughn, the Young Democrats’ secretary, praised both the substance and style of Bayh’s speech. “Somebody just said to me, he’s kind of John Edwards-ish,” Vaughn said. “He’s got that same kind of young, fresh-faced, easy-to-listen-to, easy-to-talk-to personality.... I think it’s a good thing. It’s a part of politics — you’re selling the person as much as their policies and their ideas.”
Other New Hampshirites were less kind, however. During Bayh’s next appearance — a luncheon for the Portsmouth Democrats — one woman hammered him for refusing to sign the presidential-censure resolution put forward by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), in connection with President Bush’s unauthorized wiretapping of American citizens. Bayh responded by telling the woman, as politely as possible, that the Democrats need to put pragmatism ahead of ideological purity right now. “This president has terribly governed this country, and we need to do something about that,” Bayh said. “What Russ is complaining about is the way this policy’s been carried out. We need to change the policy, okay? We need to change the policy. Now how are we going to change the policy? We’re gonna change the policy by whuppin’ ’em in November, by gettin’ a majority in the House and Senate, and ultimately electing a president who’ll have a better policy.”
The woman wasn’t satisfied. “Do you believe that he broke the law?” she asked. Bayh responded that, due to the Bush administration’s unwillingness to share key information on the wiretapping program, he honestly couldn’t say. “I suspect that the FISA law has not been followed,” Bayh added. “I think that that is probably the case. But in order to tell you that for a certainty, I’d have to have the facts, and they won’t give them to us.” The awkward silence that followed was broken by Peter Somssich — who, as chair of the Portsmouth Democrats, had introduced Bayh a few minutes earlier. “You’re not going to rally the troops by saying that,” Somssich complained. “That’s not going to help us at all. We have to get the base energized to get behind you and other candidates. And to just say, ‘Well, just wait till November to change things’ ... no.”
