"Party officials are lusting for new blood", what with the likes of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and John Edwards "looking a bit shop-worn."
Ms Means has a solution: Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, "a former governor re-elected last year in a Republican state with 62 percent while Bush won the Hoosier State with 60 percent." The Senator "has a centrist image ... he's a fiscal conservative, a foreign policy hawk, backer of a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning and against late-term abortions." In other words, he everything the Democratic Party needs to win - he's a Republican (no, only kidding).
In fact, there's plenty of meat to keep those a bit further to the left happy. For starters, he voted against lots of things: John Ashcroft for Attorney General, Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State, "against the Bush tax cuts, against oil drilling in the Arctic." He also voted "for requiring gun-show background checks."
He even seems to be working on the fact that "he is a boring speaker with no juice." Ms Means reports that, speaking at a dinner in Colorado, "Bayh put on a boffo performance," which I'm almost certain is a compliment. "If Bayh can keep that up," Ms Means predicts, "Hillary better watch out."
I'm not sure I can handle three years of top politicians trying to out-boffo each other.
http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/emeans28e_20050328.htm
