Baron says that he might run, but that he wants to have “conversations” first.

From the Indy Star:

U.S. Rep. Baron Hill said today that he isn’t ruling out a run for the U.S. Senate now that Evan Bayh has said he won’t seek re-election and will retire at the end of his term.

Hill — in his first public event since Bayh’s announcement a week ago — said he needed time to speak with the senator and others about the possibility before making a final decision.

“I’m open to the idea,” said Hill, D-9th District. “It doesn’t mean that I’m going to do it.”

Because Bayh announced his retirement just one day before a crucial filing deadline, no Democratic candidates qualified for the ballot. That means the Indiana Democratic Party’s 32-member central committee will choose a nominee.

Hill had been out of the country visiting troops on a military-sponsored trip until this weekend and had been unavailable to comment about the Senate seat.

While he was away, U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-8th District, announced he would be a candidate for the Democratic nomination. Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott and Gary School Board member Darren Washington also told party officials they intended to run.

Hill said he is scheduled to speak with Bayh today and wanted to talk with others as well.

“Let me have those conversations first and then we’ll see where this goes,” Hill said.

Let’s think about this for a moment. Evan Bayh not only timed his departure to come at the last possible moment so as to prevent a genuine primary challenge, but he also timed it to occur while Baron was out of the country visiting troops overseas and would be unable to react for an entire week.

While Baron was in the Middle East, Brad Ellsworth jumped into the race head first, arranging a replacement to run in his spot and dropping his Congressional candidacy entirely.

(Read more after the leap)

Ellsworth, in effect, has presented Baron Hill–and Indiana Democrats–with a fait accompli. There is no going back. While it is possible to negotiate the electoral law needle required to put this 8th District Humpty Dumpty back together again, the chances of it happening are slim to none.

Should Democrats choose to have someone besides Ellsworth run for the Senate seat, they will almost certainly lose the seat in the 8th District (which is otherwise safe) and they will lose Trent “Train Wreck” Van Haaften’s legislative seat, too, assuming they can’t undo the Ellsworth-Van Haaften switcheroo. If that other candidate for the Senate seat is Baron Hill, then they will almost certainly lose the 9th District seat (a seat that, to be fair, they seem set to lose anyway) in addition to the seats in the 8th District.

Brad Ellsworth just went “all-in” on running for that Senate seat. That’s a whole lot of political risk for a politician that has never shown much inclination toward taking political risks (Ellsworth never took sides in the 2008 presidential primary, for example). Given the timing, it seems unthinkable that Brad the Beautiful would undertake these actions without some sort of tacit understanding with Evan Bayh.

Care to guess how Baron Hill’s “conversations” with Bayh will turn out?

Could it be that Brad Ellsworth and Evan Bayh just screwed Baron Hill out of a chance to run for the United States Senate?