The case of the disappearing candidates
Evan Bayh says no thanks, while John Edwards is reportedly running. But will the star power of Clinton and Obama shrink the presidential field before Democrats cast a single vote?
By Walter Shapiro
Read more: Democratic Party, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Walter Shapiro, Opinion, John Edwards, Barack Obama, 2008 election
Top, left to right: Former Gov. Mark Warner, Sen. Russ Feingold, Sen. Evan Bayh. Middle: Sen. Christopher Dodd, Sen. Joseph Biden, former Sen. John Edwards. Bottom: Gov. Tom Vilsack, Gov. Bill Richardson.
Dec. 18, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- On March 4, 1976, Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination after finishing a weak third in the New Hampshire primary and then following that up with a paltry 5 percent of the vote in the Massachusetts primary.
Thirty years later, his son, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, abandoned his own quest for the White House on Saturday -- 13 months before the New Hampshire primary -- unexpectedly telling supporters in a statement, "I concluded that due to circumstances beyond our control, the odds were longer than I felt I could responsibly pursue."
The difference between these two ill-fated, father-and-son efforts illustrates how presidential politics have evolved over three decades. Back in the quaint 1970s, actual voters weighed Birch Bayh's political fate in the balance before rejecting it. This time around Evan Bayh made his calculation based on money (a bare-bones campaign for the nomination might cost $35 million), poll numbers (his support in Iowa and New Hampshire was, to put it charitably, at difficult-to-measure levels) and the caliber of the opposition (Hillary Clinton and the skyrocketing Barack Obama).
With former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold and now Bayh all jettisoning presidential bids in recent months, it is beginning to look as if Democratic voters are fast becoming irrelevant in winnowing down the field of potential candidates. The choice in a presidential race is only as good as the supply of candidates. If the field gets narrowed before the opening-bell January 2008 Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, then the voters and the Democratic Party will be deprived of a lusty debate on the nation's and the party's future.
Sure, retiring Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack has already declared his candidacy, and the Associated Press reported Saturday that 2004 vice-presidential nominee John Edwards will make it official sometime between Christmas and New Year's. (Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich also says he is running, but after his woeful performance in the 2004 primaries and caucuses, he more resembles 20th century perennial candidate Harold Stassen than a plausible contender.) Waiting in the wings, as they mull their final decisions, are New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who spoke in New Hampshire over the weekend, and veteran Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut.
Some of these potential long shots may fall by the wayside during the long preliminary jousting in 2007, discovering that they cannot raise enough money (the pace required is more than $500,000 per week with no contribution larger than $2,100) to mount a credible campaign. Antiwar Sen. Bob Graham was saddled with that problem in 2003, as he learned that vague promises by campaign fundraisers are different from actual checks. Graham dropped out three months before the Iowa caucuses.
Edwards, at least, boasts the strong backing of two of the most important interest groups in the Democratic Party -- trial lawyers (whom the campaign prays will be good for $20 million in contributions) and organized labor. The former North Carolina senator also has a potent issue (the eradication of poverty) that distinguishes him from the rest of the Democratic field. Edwards will reportedly declare his candidacy in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, to underscore the wrenching aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina for the poor.
Part of Bayh's problem was that he had not latched onto a campaign theme, nor did he have an obvious source of campaign funds beyond the $10 million that he would have been allowed to transfer from his Senate reelection account. The breadth of his résumé (he's a former two-term red-state governor who currently serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee) would have been an advantage, but it would have been hard for an even-keeled moderate Democrat like Bayh to make waves in a contest presumably dominated by history-making figures like Clinton and Obama. Yet Bayh's hunger for something beyond the Senate was palpable -- as he campaigned for House candidates in southern Indiana in late October, he kept telling home-state audiences that his favorite job was being governor and that he longed for that kind of decision-making authority.
The tentative Bayh campaign scenario called for him to concentrate virtually all of his efforts on Iowa and New Hampshire in hopes of a breakthrough. But even this two-state strategy would have been expensive enough to stretch the limits of Bayh's financial supply lines. Since Bayh would have been virtually unknown amid a crowd of celebrities (Clinton, Obama and Edwards, who surged from nowhere to almost win the 2004 Iowa caucuses), the Indiana senator probably would have begun running TV commercials in the spring of 2007 to introduce himself to voters before ad clutter made every candidate commercial sound alike.
