Liberal Coalition Takes Aim At Evan Bayh

[babylonsister]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20384.html

Coalition takes aim at moderate Dems
By ALEX ISENSTADT | 3/24/09 4:39 AM EDT


Forget party unity in the Obama era. Liberals are fed up with moderate Democrats, and a coalition of left-leaning groups is targeting Democratic senators who have been critical of the president’s $3.7 trillion budget proposal.

Campaign for America’s Future and USAction will roll out a multifront media campaign Tuesday targeting Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who has been the most vocal in his opposition to the budget.

Bayh is forming a group of moderate Democrats in the Senate modeled after the powerful House Blue Dog coalition, and the Senate liberal coalition is promising to “dog” those senators on where they stand.

“We just want them to take a stance. Either they are for him or against him,” said USAction spokeswoman CeCe Grant. “We’re just basically saying, ‘What side are you on?’”

Grant said the coalition would be releasing radio, TV and online ads in the coming days.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. Good! DINOsaurs.

If we wanted Republicans, we would have voted for them.

[babylonsister]

2. I was pretty happy to read this, too. Might make

the wishy washy sob pipe down.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

3. Oh Politico...your stories are such shite.

The tone of this article is ridiculous. "Ooh, the scary lefties are targeting St. Bayh"

Bayh is a total asshole. Fuck that guy.

[babylonsister]

7. You read an awful lot into this

that I didn't. Pretty much they're stating what a coalition is going to do, and I'm no great fan of politico and rarely link to them. I just kind of like the idea of Dems going after this milquetoast.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

11. I'm not attacking you. I link to Politico too sometimes.

But I always find their "analysis" to be slanted.

[Hubert Flottz]

4. Evan Bayh is mad because he's not the VP...

Reminds me of Joe Lieberman and will end up being on everyone's shit list like Lieberman is.

GOPer Lite is worse than an admitted America hating republican.

[Deep13]

5. Fire at will.

:-)

[vi5]

6. I don't like the whole "with him or against him" thing...

...as that reeks too much of Bush style loyalty. If Obama does something stupid I hope good liberal senators will not be "with him".

I think someone like Bayh needs to decide if he's with the majority of american people or if he's with corporations and the wealthy.

[RB TexLa]

8. What about Dems to the left of the president? Are they for him or against him? What side are they

on? I'm sure those ads will be comming out soon, right?

[ThomWV]

9. Fuck Bayh, where do I contribute?

[leveymg]

10. Gotta love the Politico framing (it's so '80s): "liberals" - bad; Blue Dogs - "moderate"

Politico's like reading The New York Post, only it pretends to be non-partisan. In itself, the centrist thing is so irrelevant.

They need a new business model.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

12. The entire media pushes the "America is center right" meme as hard as they possibly can

I hear Scarborough say it often enough that I think it is a talking point.

I don't think America is center right. I think that the economy, the job loss, the in-your-face wretched excess of Madoff and Wall Street in general, the bail-out, the stagnant wages, the crappy high cost of healthcare, are all pushing America to left of center in short order. Evan Byah is appealing to something that doesn't exist. Why did the red states go blue? It wasn't people dithering over a hard choice of whether to vote Republican or Democrat. It probably has never been as clearly delineated as in this last election.

The moderates, the DINOS, the Blue Dogs are just pissing people off. They are in the same obstructionist boat as the Republicans. Screw their "bi-partisan" stances. This little clique is just an effort to elevate their own importance. SCROOM.

[leveymg]

13. I expect the corporate "news & opinion" media will largely be extinct - not enough return on cost

Politico, like TV Network news and the Murdoch press, loses a huge amount of money. I can't see how anyone can justify dumping many more dollars into that genetic dead-end - not in this economy.

Endangered species body count piling up.

[Demeter]

18. A State of Being Too Stupid to Live

and too worthless to save.

[MADem]

14. Either they are for him or against him???

Where have we heard THAT simplistic shit before?

[Sebass1271]

15. Can DFA find a progressive candidate to run against

this asshole?? I don't like the guy at all..

[Phred42]

16. "Moderate" my ass. Bayh is right wing.

Politico, being a Reichwing organization itself, sees right wing Dems as moderate. Whoda Thunk?

These "moderate" Dems are Blue Dogs and worse.

[Douglas Carpenter]

17. Evan Bayh is NO moderate - He is a foreign policy extremist nut job - neoconservative CRANK!!

The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) is pleased to welcome Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) as an Honorary Co-Chairman. Bayh becomes the third U.S. Senator to join the committee after Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced their participation on January 28.

The Committee is a neo-con group that was formed to propagandize the country into war. It boasted such illustrious neocon members as Bill Kristol, former CIA director James Woolsey, and even McCain senior foreign policy adviser and Chalabi-bamboozler Randy Scheunemann, whom Josh has been blogging about."

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/bayh_as_veep_he_cochaired_wing.php

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Bayh is such a wacko foreign policy extremist that his biggest problem with the war in Iraq seemed to be that he was afraid it would prevent a war with Iran:

http://washingtonindependent.com/159/stop-obamabayh-08


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"This is a hallmark of Evan Bayh. A former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and a past recipient Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson Award for Distinguished Service from the neoconservative security think tank JINSA,"

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/03/evan_bayh_tough_but_smart.php

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