Bayh Endorses Clinton for President

Boy, this was a real cliffhanger. It’s finally official, Bayh has endorsed Hillary for the Democratic presidential nomination, and she has reciprocated by naming him a co-chair of her campaign. All that’s left for this little political dance to play itself out is for her to select him as her running mate.

The thing that galls me is how the news media continues to portray Bayh as a “moderate”, and uses this as a metric in their political calculations. While Bayh may have the patina of being a moderate, examination of his voting record shows that in reality he is a loyal, dependable vote for Senate Democrats. For example, here is how the Indianapolis Star puts it,

The backing from Bayh, a moderate Democrat, could help Clinton with those who fear her reputation is too liberal to win the general election.

If they think an endorsement by Bayh is going to help Clinton with moderates, I would how Bush’s endorsement figures into their calculations. Another example, this one from the AP,

Clinton said she agreed with Bayh, a centrist, that "Democrats should campaign everywhere in America.”

The drive-by media pass him off as a “moderate” and a “centrist” without presenting any evidence to back up their claims. I would like to know how voting with the Democrats in 24 out of 26 key Senate votes in 2006 makes anybody a moderate. In my opinion, this is strong evidence of the media’s liberal bias -- they perceive loyal Democrats as the center of the political spectrum. No doubt, anyone voting with Senate Republicans over 90% of the time would be labeled a Right-wing extremist.