Failure of Liberal Governance

There's a great editorial in the Wall Street Journal this morning about the failure of liberal policies.

The central contradiction in modern liberal politics is that Otto von Bismarck's entitlement state for cradle to grave financial security is no longer affordable. The model has reached the limit of its ability to tax private income and still allow enough economic growth to finance its transfer payments.

You can see this in bankrupt Greece, where government spends 52% of GDP; or in California and New York, where the government-employee unions have pushed tax rates to punishing levels and the states still can't pay their bills. Americans can see that this is where Mr. Obama's agenda is also taking Washington, and this is why they are rejecting it.

The instigation for the piece was the retirement of Evan Bayh, but that's not the focus. Instead, it addresses the fact that "for the fourth time since the 1960s, American voters in 2008 gave Democrats overwhelming control of both Congress and the White House...Yet once again, Democratic leaders have tried to govern the country from the left, only to find that their policies have hit a wall of practical and popular resistance." It's an excellent piece - read it all...

"Our guess is that it will take one more repudiation in November before Democrats relearn that you can't govern America successfully from the political left."

Evan Bayh not running for re-election

This is fairly stunning news...

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) will not seek a 3rd term in the Senate next year, according to a Dem source, handing Dems yet another setback as they struggle to salvage their damaged ship.

Bayh, elected statewide 5 times, will become the 5th Senate Dem not to seek another term. His decision to step aside , first reported by The Fix and confirmed to Hotline OnCall, creates an open seat in IN, a usually-red state that broke the mold in '08 by voting narrowly for Pres. Obama.

Last week, ex-Sen. Dan Coats (R), who held Bayh's seat before retiring in '98, announced he would run for the seat. Ex-Rep. John Hostettler (R) had already announced his own candidacy.

A recent poll taken for the liberal DailyKos website showed Bayh easily beating both Coats and Hostettler. And Bayh ended the year with $13M in the bank, far ahead of any potential challengers.

That was a seat that the Republicans thought they could win with Mike Pence if everything went well, but Pence decided to keep his House seat. That left Bayh in seemingly excellent condition to retain it for the Democrats, with big polling and money advantages. It's not overstating it to say that this significantly increases the Republican's chances of actually getting to 50 Senate seats in November. There are a number of likely gains, but they needed a couple of unlikely gains to do it, and this is one of them.