Jonathan Chait calls Evan Bayh a "wuss."

He thinks he's "just pathetic" that Bayh is quitting because he "hates the Senate" and "hates the left bloggers."

Ooh. Chait is angry. Bayh is angry. The Democrats are an angry, angry party now. They won, and then they all got so angry with each other. It's hard being a liberal. You want so much for so many people, and then you don't get it. It hurts. It hurts a lot.

Obayhma.

I thought I could be the first to write that, but I'm not. Still, I'm writing it anyway. It's the Brangelina form of naming a couple. But everyone does it, and it's hard to be first.

McRomaine.



Am I first with that?

It's not a fast-food salad.

It's:

I call Barack Obama to account for picking another bland, midwestern pretty boy.

(This is assuming the choice is Evan Bayh.)

Bayh?

The buzz says Bayh:

Senator Obama is headed for Elkhart, Indiana, tomorrow, where he is scheduled to campaign with Senator Bayh, who is being described in some quarters as the "safe" choice for Mr. Obama as a running mate. As a former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Mr. Bayh might be seen as a centrist who can help make good on Mr. Obama's talk of working to bridge party differences and unite America.

But the NY Sun says Bayh "has lurched to the left in an effort to make himself palatable to the party's base of hard-left activists and special interest groups":

He voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts....

Mr. Bayh has also lost his bearings in pursued of the left wing of organized labor...

He has pandered on the Constitution, as one of just 14 Democrats in 2006 who backed an amendment giving Congress the power to ban flag-burning. On January 22, 2004, he voted against school vouchers in Washington, D.C., a bill that more reasonable Democrats such as Senators Feinstein and Schumer supported. He filibustered to block a vote on confirming John Bolton as the Bush administration's ambassador at the United Nations....

Hmmm. I realize I have no opinion on Evan Bayh. I can't even picture him. I've never progressed beyond the stage of making an effort not to call him Birch Bayh. Okay, I just looked at a picture of him. I still can't picture him.

ADDED: The reason I can't picture Bayh is that after I look at a photograph of him, my attempt to picture him calls up a picture of John Edwards. What is it with these candidates wanting their partner to be a bland pretty boy? I remember when George H.W. Bush picked the boyishly good-looking Dan Quayle, but Kerry and now, apparently, Obama are following the pattern. It's ironic that after all that talk about how he doesn't look like all those other Presidents "on the dollar bills," Obama is choosing a man for his looks. Is this supposed to appeal to women? What's notable is that he passed up Hillary Clinton, the person with the strongest claim to the position, and that's going to irritated a lot of her supporters.

AND: I vlog my objection to the Bayh choice.

IN THE COMMENTS: Tara van Brederode says:

I kind of like the sound of "Obama/Bayh" ... though I can't help turning it into the Hindi "Obama Bhai," which means "Obama [my] brother." Then again, there's "Obama Bai," for the "kthxsbai" LOL-cat crowd. And I suppose McCain can make hay with "Obama bye." Or the capitalists: "Obama buy."

kthxsbai.

Sebelius, Kaine, Bayh, Biden — take your pick of the apparent finalists.

Seems like Biden is really the best...

ADDED: Adam Nagourney on why it's probably not going to be Clinton.

Bayh's test: Which candidate won the states with the most electoral votes?

I think it's a good idea for Obama and Clinton proponents to propose different measures for the purposes of argument to the superdelegates, like Bayh's test. But that test needs to be refined to focus on states that might go Republican in the fall. New York, California, and Massachusetts don't matter. You may think the fairest test really is the pledged delegates, because that is what the candidates were competing for. Bayh's test retroactively treats state primaries and caucuses as though they were winner-take-all, but if they were the candidates would have fought differently. But it's not clear to me that the candidates relied on something that the superdelegates have to respect.

The superdelegates should be using their power to choose the best candidate for the party, and there are many arguments that could refute the assumption that the candidate that collected the most delegates — but failed to lock the nomination — will do best in November. Since November is crucial, the Electoral College should be taken into account, but not in the crude way Bayh suggests, since the superdelegates shouldn't worry about marginal preferences for Obama or Clinton in states that will almost certainly give its electoral votes to whichever candidate the party nominates. Thus, Clinton's popularity in Ohio and Pennsylvania (and, face it, Florida) matters, but her popularity in New York and California doesn't.

Doyle?

Stanley Fish reasons his way toward a short list of possible VP choices for Hillary Clinton (TimesSelect link):

So what she needs is a governor or former governor who can tip the balance in a fairly large state that could go either way, ideally someone from Ohio or Florida. If we go strictly by this criterion, Clinton’s man is Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio; but he’s been in office for less than a year and his constituents probably wouldn’t be happy if he were to forsake them for a national stage. There’s no one in Florida, so it’s time to start looking elsewhere for someone who could help and won’t hurt. Mark Warner, the former governor of Virginia, was the political rage for a month or two and is regarded as a moderate; he could be repackaged by the right marketing campaign. He might even bring Virginia with him.

Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina is a Democrat who has run ahead of his party in two elections. However, he is not well known outside the region and it is a question as to whether he could deliver his own state. It is doubtful that John Edwards could either. It is also unlikely that he will be asked, and even less likely that he would accept, although he would be smart to do so. (How else is he going to get another chance?)

Looking to the Midwest, Wisconsin has a democratic governor, Jim Doyle, a veteran (some might say shopworn) politician who was formerly an attorney general and has two adopted African American sons. He also has been caught accepting Green Bay Packer tickets, a minor infraction for which he was fined $300, but enough, perhaps to taint him. Evan Bayh is a popular senator from Indiana who was also a popular governor. He has tested the presidential waters before; and would know what he was in for.

And then there’s Bill Richardson, two-term governor of New Mexico, former congressman. former Ambassador to the United Nations, former Secretary of Energy, three quarters Mexican, but with a reassuringly Anglo-Saxon name. Sounds ideal, even though his state has only five electoral votes and he is an unpolished speaker....

So there’s the list – Warner, Bayh, Easley, Richardson, maybe Doyle. No one who sets the pulses racing, but no one, at least on the evidence so far, who would be a total mistake. The mistake would be if Senator Clinton decided to get creative and adventurous, but on the record there seems to be little danger of that.

Doyle?

IN THE COMMENTS: The subject of Bush and Gore debating comes up, and someone says "dumb beats weirdo." Somebody else perceives that as a rock-paper-scissors game and the search is on for what beats dumb but loses to weirdo.

LATER: John Stodder writes:

As the originator of this new rock-paper-scissors meme, I declare Original Mike's suggestion of "Boring" to be correct. So now we know how the world works:

Weirdo beats Boring
Boring beats Dumb
Dumb beats Weirdo

I think that accounts for pretty much every presidential election in U.S. history. You could look it up.

Also, this explains Hollywood, and perhaps the blogosphere.

One bland, sandy-haired Senator out, another bland, sandy-haired Senator in.

Bayh, Edwards... what's the difference?

78.

Great! Roberts is confirmed by a margin of 78 to 22. As to those 22 Democrats who voted no, they have openly embraced an ideological view of the Court from which they can never credibly step back. For them, appointing Supreme Court Justices is a processes of trying to lock outcomes in place, and we shouldn't believe them if in the future they try to say otherwise.

UPDATE: Correction to the number made. And here's the list of the 22 Democrats:

Evan Bayh of Indiana
Joseph Biden of Delaware
Barbara Boxer of California
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York
Jon Corzine of New Jersey
Mark Dayton of Minnesota
Dick Durbin of Illinois
Dianne Feinstein of California
Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts
John Kerry of Massachusetts
Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Barack Obama of Illinois
Harry Reid of Nevada
Charles Schumer of New York
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
Jack Reed of Rhode Island
Tom Harkin of Iowa
Daniel Inouye of Hawaii
Paul Sarbanes of Maryland
Maria Cantwell of Washington
Daniel Akaka of Hawaii

I hope no one on that list is running for President.