More on the Warner Withdrawal and Say Hello to Bayh

I opined at RedBlueChristian.com:

I still feel that Hillary Clinton will decide not to seek the presidency in 2008.

The upcoming election represents a huge opportunity for the Democrats and irrespective of how much tacking toward the center–genuine or feigned–New York’s junior Senator may undertake, she is still the most polarizing current figure in US politics. (She routinely registers about 49% negative ratings and that’s before a single vote is cast.)

My guess is that she will look at numbers like those and decide that, at least for the time being, she’ll seek to emulate her Democratic predecessor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan who, conservative columnist George Will called the best senator in US history.

But even if Clinton doesn’t back out, I think that she’ll not be given the nomination. Democrats so hate George W. Bush and so want to replace him with one from their own party that, seeing how polarizing Clinton is, they’re more apt to go the moderate route. This makes a figure like [Indiana Senator Evan] Bayh [pictured at right] more appealing, especially since service as a governor is the gold standard of US presidential politics.

Of course, I should end this time at my crystal ball by saying, “Or not.” After all, I was the guy who thought that Mark Warner would be the 2008 nominee of the Democratic Party.

(I’m not so certain that McCain will be the Republican nominee, although by the usual thinking of Republicans, it is his turn.)

And, when later pressed by Andrew Jackson, "if not Clinton, then who," I suggested:

I think at this point Bayh is the likeliest nominee: former governor, moderate, Dem who wins in a red state.

John Dickerson over at Slate seems to have had the same inklings I'd had about Warner and that now I have about Bayh:

Whether he had a shot, Warner would have been an interesting candidate to have in the race. He was running to Hillary's right and saying the kind of moderate things that would have picked a fight with the party's liberal activists. Party fights are good: They work things out, and the Democrats could use the debate. At one point, Warner said the finger-pointing about Bush misleading America into Iraq wasn't helpful and that the party needed to move on. He said tax cuts were not a universal evil and that when Democrats talk about taxing the rich, they offend those people who want to be rich themselves someday. He was not a fan of what he called the party's "class warfare" populism that many Democrats think is the key to winning back the White House.

Immediately after his announcement Thursday, Warner became very popular among candidates who were preparing to fight him in the primaries. Some called him to start the process of winning him to their side. Sens. Evan Bayh and John Kerry made their praise public. The most likely beneficiary of Warner's departure may be Bayh, who was competing for a similar sphere of donors and activists as a representative of the centrist wing of the Democratic Party. As a former governor of Indiana, Bayh can claim executive experience, just as Warner could, and offer the same hope that as a favorite son he could turn a red state into one the Democrats could count on. Thursday, Warner said he wasn't dropping out of the process. His former rivals won't let him.

[UPDATE: Rob Harrington, an Indiana Democrat who supports Evan Bayh, reacts to the Warner withdrawal.]

[THANKS TO: Spencer Troxell for linking to this post.]