I found this post to really hit on some great points, and with Scott’s blessing I am posting it on the Bloody 8th. I think Scott has hit on some great points. Senator Bayh is faced with voting for Cap&Tax, Card Check, and Socialistic Health Care. I would say these votes will determine his future in Indiana, and like Scott I think the case can be made that the Senator can be beat. For more I would encourage you to visit Scott’s blog Hoosier Pundit . 

I don’t think that the case for sending Birch’s boy packing like his father is exactly the one laid out by Brian Howey last week, though Howey is to be very much commended for being willing to buck the usual “invincibility” nonsense talking pointscirculated by Bayh’s cronies.

The case for beating Evan Bayh doesn’t come from looking at the fall of Bob Garton or Larry Borst; both fell to primary challengers. If the 2008 election proved anything, it is that Evan Bayh’s grip on the machinery of the Indiana Democratic Party is sufficient to strangle primary challengers. If not in the primary crib in May, then at the general ballot in November. The abnormal Democratic primary electorate that favored the outsider Jill Long Thompson over Jim Schellinger, the pick of Bayh’s party establishment, will not be turning out in 2010. Dick Lugar is more likely to face a serious primary challenge than Evan Bayh.

The case for beating Evan Bayh also doesn’t come from looking at the fall of Bayh’s protege, Bart Peterson, to now Mayor Greg Ballard. That was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Not just because of the unexpected nature of Peterson’s fall, but the unusual nature of his challenger and the rather quirky campaign that Ballard waged (to the extent that you could even say that Ballard had a campaign at all).

No, the case for beating Evan Bayh is found elsewhere. It is found in examining other states, where voters have sent heavily-favored and entrenched incumbent senators from both parties packing in recent years. In looking at the defeat of incumbents in other states, it is easy to see how a vapid non-entity such as Evan Bayh could be defeated.

In 2004, South Dakota voters ousted Tom Daschle, the leader of his party in the United States Senate, in a very tough campaign. Daschle, however, both had limitless resources, was a top national Republican target, and his opponent had run statewide and lost narrowly just two years prior. Bayh is not likely to be a top national target for the GOP in 2010, at least not early on, so his opponent is not likely to have resource parity, nor are any of his likely opponents (at the moment) individuals with statewide campaign experience.

In 2006, there are a number of more operative examples. Conrad Burns, the incumbent Republican Senator from hyper-conservative Montana, was defeated by Jon Tester, a state senator that few people had heard of just a few years before. The race was on few radar screens in the summer of 2005. It was a hard-fought race, but one from which a challenger to Evan Bayh could learn much.

But also in that year was the most operative example for somebody wanting to oust Evan Bayh. That race was in Virginia, where incumbent Republican Senator George Allen had massive leads on his opponent and had his eye on running for president in 2008. Allen’s opponent had never even held an elected office before, and Allen was widely viewed as “invincible.” Yet, after a close race that was very nasty, the previously “invincible” George Allen–telegenic, with national political aspirations and all the rest–was defeated.

If Evan Bayh is beaten, it will look more like one of those three races (and probably one of the latter two) than any of the upsets we have seen in Indiana in recent years.

But make no mistake about it, that upset is a very real possibility. It will require a campaign with resources–not infinite resources, but sufficient to put forward a message on the air–and it will require a tireless candidate willing to land heavy punches on Evan Bayh’s record and not relent in the hitting until the job is done.

Every candidate can be beat, but not every candidate can win. Evan Bayh can certainly be beat.

The question now is whether Republicans will find a candidate that can win. Right now, there are three possibilities (Dumezich, Stutzman, and Bates; Weaver is not running).

Dan Dumezich is not even in the race yet, but he is already hammeringBayh on ethics issues. A skilled fundraiser–he raised millions in a week for Mitch Daniels back in 2004–can probably raise the money necessary to be viable, if he has the will to keep on hitting and not let up.

Don Bates started his campaign by taking a vacation. That is not an auspicious beginning, but I’ll withhold further comment until I see if he gets into gear upon returning.

Marlin Stutzman seems to be working hard and is a declared candidate, yet hasn’t gained the attention Dumezich has garnered without even entering the race. I’m not sure why not.

The models are there for any of these three candidates to follow. They’re not found in Bob Garton or Larry Borst or Greg Ballard. They’re found in Jon Tester and John Thune and Jim Webb, and any one of them can potentially send Evan Bayh back to Georgetown where he belongs.

But perhaps the strongest case of all for beating Evan Bayh comes not from looking at somebody else that lost, but at looking at somebody that won. What Hoosier political observer, at this point in 2007, would have said that Mitch Daniels would coast to an easy eighteen-point reelection margin over his Democratic opponent?

And in the summer of 2007–with the property tax unrest at its height, with polls showing Mitch Daniels behind, and with conventional wisdom knocking everything about the Governor–who would have predicted such a victory? I certainly didn’t. I know Brian Howey and most other pundits didn’t, either.

A state that would return Mitch Daniels by that margin when of such mixed opinion about him just a year before the election is a state that would easily do the reverse to Evan Bayh. The same voters that overwhelmingly turned in favor of My Man Mitch can easily turn overwhelmingly against Birch’s boy.

And if the rumorsof Dan Parker laying down the law about 2010 on Bayh’s behalf are even close to true, then Evan Bayh and his hack cronies know they are vulnerable, though they would never dare to admit it in public.

The iron-fisted and dictatorial nature of the supposed meeting seems to be incredible. But then, having a soft touch with these same people has never been a forte of Bayh or of Dan Parker. They laid down the law hard for Clinton last year (and for Schellinger), and it got them nowhere. Their heavy-handedness then made them no friends. I’m amazed that they want to be similarly heavy-handed now. It is madness.

Can anyone genuinely say that Andre Carson owes his seat to Evan Bayh? Or Pete Visclosky (who was in elected office when Bayh still lived in the District of Columbia instead of a post office box)? And Baron has already bucked Bayh once by endorsing Obama and saw his strongest reelect result yet after doing so. The maintenance (or fall) of Pat Bauer’s House majority will not hinge on Evan Bayh’s reelection.

These are not puppets with no means or organizations of their own; it is stupid for Dan Parker and Bayh to believe that they can treat them as such. The Bayh machine would have to be seeing some inconvenient and uncomfortable trends in their internal polling to be laying down the law like this so soon.

The thin veneer of invincibility has already being chipped away.

The emperor indeed has no clothes.

Evan Bayh can be beat.