Evan Bayh is a SERIOUS contender

Apparently, governors with national security experience are no longer considered as being a serious contender for the presidency. I beg to differ. Within a few days after the 2004 election, I was on the John Edwards for President in 2008 bandwagon but I did some soul searching and thought very serious for a few days. Ultimately, I decided that there is no way that we'll win the presidency without someone with executive experience. Evan Bayh, Tom Vilsack, and Bill Richardson are likely to be the only candidates with executive experience in the 2008 field. You can look at the research but it's been 46 years since a sitting Senator with no experience as Governor was elected as president.

While in New Hampshire, Senator Evan Bayh will steer clear from his fellow senator, Barack Obama. The Senator has also officially filed his exploratory committeee papers with the FEC.

As was blogged here the other day, Brett Hall is back in town.

Here's an article from the Indy Star as to a Bayh run in 2008.

Let's just be straight: Sen. Evan Bayh, our state's president-in-wanting, leans more toward Al Gore than Bill Clinton in the charisma department.

And while he has been Indiana's political superstar for 20 years, on the national stage Bayh continues to be outshone by bigger names such as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. As he moves toward a formal run for the White House, Bayh is among a group of candidates whose names are often prefaced in news reports by the words "also considering a run for the Democratic nomination are..."

So can a lower-profile guy like Bayh compete for attention with Clinton and Obama, a pair of politicians with adoring fan bases and best-selling memoirs? Will a low-key candidate such as Bayh get lost in the Iowa farmland and New Hampshire snow if and when the bigger names start traipsing through?

Doesn't matter.

Those are things for Bayh to worry about a year from now.

For now, many presidential nomination watchers say, Bayh just has to hang in the race. To do so, he needs to raise money, build a strong organization and spend obscene amounts of time in key states such as Iowa and New Hampshire. He's done well on the latter two, and he's off to a good start on the money.

Now, as he has acknowledged, Bayh must understand bigger names will win much more press in the coming months. While it's not the most enviable position, there is benefit to operating out of the spotlight in these early days.

"He is low-key, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in the Midwest," said Gordon Fischer, a former Democratic Party chairman in Iowa, a state whose caucuses are the first test of presidential nominees. "You get noticed by coming here a lot, and Senator Bayh has done that...The key to success is organize, organize, organize -- and then get hot at the end."

The myths and facts behind President Jimmy Carter's newest book.

Carter's views have also been disowned by high-ranking members of his own Democratic Party including DNC Chairman Howard Dean and Speaker Elect Nancy Pelosi as well as leading African-American congressman Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) who said the use of apartheid in the book's title "does not serve the cause of peace and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting in death, is offensive and wrong."

HonestReporting calls on subscribers to ask the questions of Jimmy Carter that the media is failing to do.

Another reason why something needs to be done about Iran. There is no diplomatic resolution to dealing with Iran and that's a fact. We're talking about a nutcase who wants to see Jews and Christians dead.

Former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern had this to say about former Senator Tom Daschle's withdrawal from the presidential race.

One person Tom Daschle discussed his political options with was a South Dakota Democrat who did run for president. Former Senator George McGovern says he and Daschle talked about the possibility of Daschle running for the highest office a few months ago. McGovern says, "He told me then he wasn't sure what he was going to do but he was going to take a serious look at it and I think that's exactly what he did."

McGovern says he was ready to put his support behind Tom Daschle. McGovern says, “I would never try to urge somebody to get into a political contest of that kind, unless they're absolutely sure that's what they want to do.”

McGovern says Daschle would have been a talented president and he's a bit disappointed Daschle isn't running. But McGovern says he knows Daschle made the right decision.