You’ve got to admire the brazen chutzpah of Evan Bayh. Even as he whines about the partisanship of Congress in announcing his retirement from the Senate, Bayh timed his departure to be the ultimate partisan act.

By leaving when he did, Bayh completely deprived hundreds of thousands of Hoosier Democrats of the chance to have a say in who will replace him. That decision will now be made by 32 of Bayh’s closest cronies on the Indiana Democratic Party’s State Committee.

Fred Barnes puts it well:

Did Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, who insists he favors more bipartisanship in Washington, schedule the announcement of his retirement to give his party a distinctly partisan advantage in picking a candidate to run for his seat? It sure looks like he did exactly that.

Indeed, Democratic strategists and party officials in Indiana were full of praise for Bayh for delivering his announcement less than 24 hours before the filing deadline for candidates. This means party leaders–32 of them–will pick a candidate (by June 30), and a primary will be averted.

Bayh almost certainly knew exactly what he was doing. He is the most important Democrat in Indiana and one of his close associates, state party chairman Dan Parker, will lead the panel that chooses the Democratic candidate for Senate.

And Bayh is very familiar with the state’s election law. His first elected office was Indiana secretary of state, the official who’s in charge of elections.

Politico, the Washington-based political newspaper, quoted Indiana Democrats as saying the timing of Bayh’s announcement was beneficial to their party. “I’m sure Sen. Bayh was well aware of the need for the party to have as much input as possible,” Marion County Democratic chairman Edward Treacy told Politico. “He knew what he was doing.”

The ABC News affiliate in Indianapolis, WRTV, said “Democratic sources” told the station tell that “Sen. Bayh waited ‘til the last minute to prevent other Democrats from entering the race and that also means keeping people out who might not have really had a chance at winning the general election.”

Think about that last line again:

“Democratic sources” told the station tell that “Sen. Bayh waited ‘til the last minute to prevent other Democrats from entering the race and that also means keeping people out who might not have really had a chance at winning the general election.”

Translation: Democratic sources said Evan Bayh wanted until the last minute to prevent Hoosier Democratic primary voters from electing someone (generally liberal and left of the Hoosier mainstream) like themselves.

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Nancy Pelosi has dug in her high heels and is saying an emphatic “NO!” to a televised Conference Committee on House and Senate health care negotiations.  But wasn’t it our fear(ful?) leader who campaigned on televised negotiations on health care?

Those 8 lies promises apparently don’t bother Madam Pelosi. She also doesn’t think too much of the President’s so-called promises.

Pelosi emerged from a meeting with her leadership team and committee chairs in the Capitol to face an aggressive throng of reporters who immediately hit her with C-SPAN’s request that she permit closed-door final talks on the bill to be televised.

A reporter reminded the San Francisco Democrat that in 2008, then-candidate Obama opined that all such negotiations be open to C-SPAN cameras.

“There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail,” quipped Pelosi, who has no intention of making the deliberations public.

People familiar with Pelosi’s thinking wasted little time in explaining precisely what she meant by a “number of things” — saying it reflected weeks of simmering tension on health care between two Democratic power players who have functioned largely in lock step during Obama’s first year in office.

So will the President make good on his campaign promise or will he succumb to Nancy Pelosi’s closed door whims and make himself a liar?

Al Franken won his courtroom fight to become the newest senator from Minnesota today. Norm Coleman ceded the Senate race to the former SNL actor and Air America talk show host after the Minnesota Supreme Court decided in Franken’s favor. The Democrats officially have their bullet-proof majority to end Republican Senate filibusters by invoking cloture.

Just in time for the Senate Democrats as the first major item on their agenda after the holiday break is the Cap and Tax bill that narrowly passed the House last Friday.

Meet Mike Murphy. He’s a political consultant. He was a campaign strategist and pollster for Mitt Romney and John McCain. He hated the pick of Sarah Palin as vice president.

He’s now a talking head on MSNBC. He likes to write columns proclaiming doom and gloom and the end of the Republican Party unless it runs more people like John McCain. Funny how that worked out this last time, right?

He’s also an idiot.

In his latest column, Murphy singles out Indiana to prove his hypothesis of the need for more candidates like John McCain:

(Read more after the leap)

From Shella comes news of a clash of titans:

Republican Governor Mitch Daniels vetoed the bill to allow for more vote centers today. This is his veto message:

“While this bill contains provisions that would make the act of voting more convenient, it does not contain sufficient safeguards against fraud and abuse and removes long-standing bipartisan checks and balances in the conduct of elections.”

Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita upset. Here’s the statement he issued:

“How ironic it is that the one local government reform that actually passes the legislature ends up getting vetoed. Vote Centers is perhaps the only local government reform that so far has been proven unequivocally to save taxpayers money. I would expect, given the serious fiscal condition of the state, that the concept is important enough to find its way into the budget bill so that all 92 counties be given the opportunity to realize the unquestionable taxpayer benefits and savings.”

I’m glad the Governor vetoed the legislation.

The problem with the legislation isn’t that vote centers are bad. Far from it.

The problem with the legislation is that they rely upon the county election board make decisions about them.

The legislation about vote centers suffers from being tied to a much worse problem that nobody ever wants to address.

Indiana’s laws for county election boards are flawed.

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Remember that talk about not raising taxes on people who make less than $250,000 a year?

As the Associated Press notes, that promise got broken:

One of President Barack Obama’s campaign pledges on taxes went up in puffs of smoke Wednesday.

The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama’s promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.

This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.

To be sure, Obama’s tax promises in last year’s campaign were most often made in the context of income taxes. Not always.

“I can make a firm pledge,” he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

He repeatedly vowed “you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.”

Now in office, Obama, who stopped smoking but has admitted he slips now and then, signed a law raising the tobacco tax nearly 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes, to $1.01. Other tobacco products saw similarly steep increases.

As Geraghty wryly notes when it comes to keeping his campaign promise, “technically, Obama is keeping his word, because he’s not raising taxes by one dime, but by a whole lot of dimes.”

Just as a side note, Baron Hill voted twice (here and here) for the legislation that enacted this tax increase.

I was teaching a candidate school recently in Minnesota and wandered into some dangerous territory. Our firm is often hired to do political education and one of our bigger clients is American Majority We teach several sessions that focus on Communications, Campaign Plans, Fundraising, Social Media and Grassroots Organizing (all ppts are available to download and steal here SlideShare )

The last session of the day focuses on Grassroots Organizing Online and Offline. One of the themes I present is how most grassroots movements are viral and require a “host”. I then go on to say that Ron Paul was too weak of a “host” to carry his “movement”. Full disclosure – I was a mail vendor for Fred Thompson’s campaign (that is a whole other discussion) and I did not support Ron Paul. Having said that, I was constantly intrigued by his supporters and his “movement”. I work in the business of political campaigns and like to think I am a student of how they work on a logistics and business end. So for the purposes of this post lets skip by issues and just talk nuts and bolts.

First I have to take a dig at my strident Libertarian friends who loved Dr. Paul – learn a lesson from him

1. Run as a Libertarian for Congress and lose
2. Run as a Republican for Congress and win
3. Run as a Republican for President and get to take the stage, be in the debates and air your issues

(**CORRECTION** thanks to my observant friend Steve from Minnesota I stand corrected. Dr. Paul was Republican Member of Congress from 1976 to ‘85. He then ran for President in 1988 as a Libertarian. He then returned to Congress in 1996 as a Republican. I was wrong and I repent. However I think it would be fair to say that he ran for Congress in 1996 as Republican because he knew he would not win if he ran as a Libertarian.) Pretty safe to say no one is accusing Dr. Paul of “selling out” even though he ran as a Republican. I can already feel the hate that point is going to draw…

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From The Weekly Standard:

The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is considering health care benefits. To the paper’s credit, the lede notes just how thick the hypocrisy is on this. Obama attacked McCain relentlessly during the campaign for proposing a health care reform that would have done the same thing, only it would have included a $5,000 tax credit to offset the change in policy. On Meet the Press this morning, Christina Romer said while the administration doesn’t support the idea, neither would she rule it out.

This is probably the second most hypocritical thing the Obama administration has done this week, after President Obama issued his first signing statements on Wednesday despite repeated criticism during the campaign of the Bush administration for doing precisely the same thing (though like Bush, Obama was right to issue such statements in order to prevent any infringement by Congress on his prerogatives as president).

Here’s one of the several health care ads Obama put up during the campaign lambasting the idea of taxing health care benefits. Note the quotes from Joe Klein, who will no doubt soon charge in to criticize Obama’s audacious reversal. Another ad, featuring Obama attacking the issue in his own voice, can be found here.

Back in the spring of last year, Greg Zoeller announced that he would be running for attorney general, much to the ire of the Indianapolis establishment. He went on to trounce the establishment candidate in a convention floor fight, win a tough race in November, and is now Indiana’s attorney general.

In his announcement press release, Zoeller touted the support of two GOP district chairmen, Marsha Carrington of the 8th and Larry Shickles of the 9th. They (and many other supporters of Zoeller) were told that Indianapolis would be “keeping score.”

With district-level GOP reorganization set for this Saturday, the only two contested district races in the entire state are against Carrington and Shickles; it strains credulity to find this to be a mere coincidence.

In the 9th, Shickles is facing Erin Houchin, an Indianapolis political insider with close ties to the Governor and to the Indy establishment.

Houchin is also the vice chairman of the Washington County GOP; at a district-level meeting of county chairs and vice chairs held in Salem (in Washington County) two weeks ago (on February 28), she wasn’t even present. At that time, she had not declared her candidacy; word she was running did not come out until Tuesday evening (March 10). The filing deadline was Wednesday morning.

Speculation just one day before had been that former state legislator Billy Bright (who has been very involved in helping the House Republican Campaign Committee with candidate recruitment and other efforts in southern Indiana) might be mulling a bid against Shickles, but Bright did not run (and he’s not exactly a poster child for the Indy establishment, as a side note).

Then came the Houchin bid, which is apparently to be coupled with a bid by former Jackson County Chairman Dennis Carmichael to be the district vice chairman. Carmichael did not get reelected in last week’s reorganization in Jackson County; unless I am mistaken, he didn’t seek reelection for whatever reason (which makes one wonder why he’s running for district vice chairman instead, but I digress).

(Read more after the leap)