With Friends Like This

by digby

I suppose it’s inevitable that everyone in the Village would have an orgasm when Evan Bayh announced that the horrible partisanship is running him out of politics. But as with the other famous quitter, Sarah Palin, it’s very convenient to ignore the most likely reason.

Howard Fineman, who is evidently a good friend of Bayh’s, spells out why he thinks he quit, and I think he also inadvertently spells out exactly what a callow, petulant fellow his good friend actually is. First, he says that he didn’t have the stomach for a tough Senate race and that he doesn’t much like Obama, who he sees as a mushy liberal naif. Then he says that Bayh doesn’t like politics anymore because centrists aren’t popular and that he’s really too lazy to run for president but is pissed that nobody made it easy for him by anointing him Vice President.

Finally he gets to the nub of it, although hints of this are woven throughout the piece. Bayh, like Palin, realizes that this is his chance to cash in and he’s going for it. He’s still young enough to “reinvent himself” (as a millionaire) and he has two young sons who he wants to spend more time with so he wants to “change the mix” and become the major breadwinner.

I suspect this is correct. He doesn’t see himself inheriting the presidency while he’s still relatively young anymore, doesn’t want to run himself because it’s too hard, and so he might as well make the big bucks now. And lord knows there’s no better time to do it. In this age of rank plutocracy, political players are among the most valuable commodities out there. A “Democrat” with a reputation for deficit hawkishness and corporate friendly centrist bonafides is worth his weight in gold.

I would guess that quite a few of our “retiring centrists” are actually simple opportunists. With all the government activity surrounding economics, these people finally have something valuable to sell: themselves.

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