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Democratic Congressman Brad Ellsworth told 14 News Friday morning that he has decided he wants to take Evan Bayh's place in the U.S. Senate. Ellsworth is in his second term from southwestern Indiana's 8th district and has been mentioned as a possible choice for Democrats since Bayh's unexpected announcement Monday that he wouldn't seek a third Senate term. The 51-year-old Ellsworth has won by big margins in both his congressional campaigns. He was a career police officer and was twice elected as sheriff in Vanderburgh County sheriff. Others have expressed interest in being the Democratic nominee like Hammond Mayor Thomas...

Democratic Rep. Brad Ellsworth said Friday he will seek Evan Bayh's Indiana Senate seat, a newspaper reported. The Evansville Courier & Press said the 51-year-old Ellsworth made his announcement Friday in his hometown Evansville. SNIP The two-term congressman emerged as a leading possible choice for Democrats after Bayh's unexpected announcement Monday that he wouldn't seek a third Senate term. Ellsworth is considered an attractive candidate because he won by big margins in both his campaigns his largely rural congressional district in southwestern Indiana after eight years as sheriff of the district's largest county. SNIP A political ally of Ellsworth's on...

While Rush Limbaugh and conservative prognosticators spend their time arguing the State media’s assertion that Bayh is a conservative Democrat, and many believe his early retirement as senator from Indiana is an indication that some are abandoning the liberal direction of the Party, I believe this could be a move made in view of the Big Picture. Though I currently live in Georgia, the majority of my life was lived in Indiana, so I am familiar with Bayh’s career. As son of Birch Bayh, Evan had a meteoric rise through state politics. He became governor in 1989 and served for...

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., "shocked" President Barack Obama and his party by announcing his plan to retire from the Senate. Appearing on CBS' "The Early Show," Bayh explained: Washington suffers from acute partisanship. Washington doesn't work. It is broken. How noble -- a principled position against "divisiveness." Let us honor a good man standing tall against the lack of "bipartisanship." Pass the barf bag. When has Washington, D.C., not been "divisive" under a president pushing unpopular ideas -- whether the war in Iraq, the Senate "amnesty" bill, partial privatization of Social Security or Bill Clinton's attempt to allow gays to...

Even in the midst of economic and political melt down, Sen. Evan Bayh was still between 10 and 20 points ahead of his potential Republican challengers. Why did the Indiana Democrat announce he will not run for re-election? "Even pols are sick of Washington," blared the Politico.com headline. Bayh's friend and ex-chief of staff, former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, told the press, "Those frustrations have increasingly worn on him, and I think his willingness to tolerate the frustrations has decreased over time." Evan Bayh is tired of being the middle patch of ground in a culture war that never seems...

WASHINGTON -- Having lived in the belly of the beast for much of his life, Evan Bayh has emerged -- soul apparently intact -- to testify about it. What he witnessed convinced him that giving it all up and walking away was better than staying part of the criminal charade that is Congress today. From when he was a boy of 8, his father was a senator. Like many sons of senators, he grew up attending elite schools here. And until Evan Bayh was 26 years old, his father was a member of the most exclusive club on earth. And...

"Mr. Bayh knows something about high-water political floods. As a 24-year-old law student he helped run his father's 1980 Senate re-election and saw him go down to defeat under the Reagan landslide. In 1994, Mr. Bayh was governor of Indiana and thankful he wasn't before the voters when they revolted against Bill Clinton. "Every 14 or 16 years we seem to have to relearn this lesson," Mr. Bayh said. "I do have a sense of deja vu, and the movie doesn't have a happy ending." He isn't the first observer to note the misfortune that befalls modern Democrats when they...

The real reason Evan Bayh wants out of Washington. The political retirement of Evan Bayh, at age 54, is being portrayed by various sages as a result of too much partisanship, or the Senate's dysfunction, or even the systemic breakdown of American governance. Most of this is rationalization. The real story, of which Mr. Bayh's frustration is merely the latest sign, is the failure once again of liberal governance. For the fourth time since the 1960s, American voters in 2008 gave Democrats overwhelming control of both Congress and the White House. Republicans haven't had such large majorities since the 1920s....

President Barack Obama is facing humiliation in this year's mid-term elections after a wave of desertions by Democratic senators who have retreated from tough challenges for their seats from a resurgent Republican party. There was speculation on Tuesday that the next to join an exodus ahead of the November elections could be Blanche Lincoln, who represents the conservative southern state of Arkansas and is behind every putative Republican challenger in opinon polls. The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is meanwhile trailing all his potential Republican opponents in his state of Nevada, and even Mr Obama's old Senate seat in Illinois...

In an interview on MSNBC this morning, newly retiring Sen. Evan Bayh declared the American political system "dysfunctional," riddled with "brain-dead partisanship" and permanent campaigning. Flatly denying any possibility that he'd seek the presidency or any other higher office, Bayh argued that the American people needed to deliver a "shock" to Congress by voting incumbents out in mass and replacing them with people interested in reforming the process and governing for the good of the people, rather than deep-pocketed special-interest groups. Bayh's announcement stunned the American political world, as up until just last week he looked to be well on...

It is white-rhino rare for a politician who is in the prime of his life (or for that matter at the end of his life), and who is still popular with his constituents, to quit without an ulterior motive. Bob Dole quit in order to focus on a Presidential run. Sarah Pailin quit in order to spend time in the lower 48 states, promote a book and perhaps run for the White House. Even politicians near death tend to keep running. Senator Byrd (D-Living) and Strom Thurmond (R-Dead) have been prime examples of this phenomenon. Moderate Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN),...

People will build up the story for the next couple of days—a theme already being echoed throughout the communication channels that make up political chatter. 2009 was a bad year for centrists in a highly politicized Washington. Moderate Democrats were the ones to face the wrath of a nation growing weary of minimal results and continued in-fighting on Capitol Hill. Therefore, Bayh’s retirement should come as no surprise, the thinking goes. It was due, especially now that information is coming forward that his staff had heard speculation of his pending retirement for several months. However, there is more to this...

Updated at 12:23 p.m. Restaurant owner Tamyra d'Ippolito (D) has enough signatures to make the ballot in the race to replace Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), she told Hotline OnCall in a brief interview, but an official in a key district says she has failed to reach the threshold. An official in Marion Co. (IN) tells Hotline OnCall d'Ippolito turned in just 3 signatures in the 7th CD, the district with the highest percentage of Dem voters. The noon deadline has passed, meaning d'Ippolito failed to meet the requirements to get on the ballot. She would have been required to submit...

Restaurant owner Tamyra d'Ippolito (D) has enough signatures to make the ballot in the race to replace Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), she told Hotline OnCall in a brief interview. Reached at her home, d'Ippolito said she was on her way out the door to drop off more signatures at the county clerk's office. D'Ippolito's backers have until noon to submit 4,500 signatures, including 500 from each of the state's 9 districts, to the appropriate county clerks. "To my knowledge, yes we do. There's people putting in signatures as we speak," d'Ippolito said when asked if she has the signatures necessary...

The poison partisan politics of Barry Hussein Soetoro and the Democrat Party is taking its toll on less partisans of the Democrat Party. Sen. Evan Bayh who expressed frustration at the increasingly polarized atmosphere in Washington should be a reality check for Democrats who spent an entire year pushing a partisan agenda though the Congress only to be opposed by fellow Democrats while Republicans sat on the sidelines for the most part because they did not have adequate numbers with which so stop any of the Democrat marquee agenda items, Health Care Reform, Global Warming/Cap and Trade energy legislation and...

"This is a warning sign on so many levels, when people like Evan Bayh walk way rather than serve their country," said Steve McMahon, a former Senate staffer for the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. "The moderate Democrat is a vanishing breed," said McMahon, a Democratic strategist on Capitol Hill. "It is the moderates that make the difference between being in the majority and being in the minority, a problem for the Democrats." Former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum said Bayh did what he himself should have done when faced with a similar situation in the 2006 mid-term...

Retiring Sen. Evan Bayh (BY) says voters across the country could deliver "a shock" to Congress if lawmakers don't work in more harmony and drop rampant partisanship. In a nationally broadcast interview Tuesday, the Indiana Democrat said "the extremes of both parties have to be willing to accept compromises" in order to accomplish things for the national good. Bayh denied that he had an interest in running for president and said on ABC's "Good Morning America" he told President Barack Obama on Monday that he would support his re-election. Bayh also said he thinks voters are in a mood to...

Mr. Bayh’s decision staggered Democrats. It was the latest in a series of setbacks that illustrate just how far the party’s fortunes have fallen since President Obama came to office more than a year ago, sweeping big majorities into the House and Senate with him. Mr. Bayh stepped aside despite personal entreaties from Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, White House officials said. Mr. Bayh was on the short list of candidates Mr. Obama considered for vice president before settling on Joseph R. Biden Jr. He was among the most prominent of moderate Democrats in Congress, but...

WASHINGTON -- Popular Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh shocked the political world yesterday when he announced he won't run for re-election this year, saying he's fed up with Congress -- immediately sparking speculation the moderate heartland Democrat might challenge President Obama in 2012. "To put it in words most Hoosiers can understand: I love working for the people of Indiana, I love helping our citizens make the most of their lives, but I do not love Congress," Bayh said in Indianapolis. Bayh, who had been on Obama's short list for vice president, left the door open to all kinds of opportunities...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today he's "confident" Democrats will hold on to Sen. Evan Bayh's (D-Ind.) seat in 2010. Reid made the comments in a statement on Bayh's retirement: "Evan Bayh has been a strong voice for Indiana for many years and I thank him for his service. I respect his decision to step aside and look forward to continuing working with him to create jobs, strengthen the economy and keep our country safe throughout the remainder of his term. I am also confident that the efforts of Senator Bayh along with those of the DSCC will...