Backstory: Bayh has been a staple of speculation since at least June, when he broke with veepstakes protocol (smile, blush and say you plan to keep your day job) and confessed that he'd accept the job if offered. "I don't think it's the kind of thing you say no to," he told MSNBC on June 26. "The answer to that is yes. If you care about serving your country, that is the kind of thing that you do." In the months that followed, Obama further fueled the fire by appearing twice with Bayh in Indiana--once on July 16, and once on August 6. For much of the summer, Bayh occupied the top slot in Chris Cillizza's much-read Veepstakes rankings, and the Bayh buzz peaked earlier this month with premature "revelations" and bogus "leaks." In the past 36 hours, the chattering classes have may have moved on to Biden--but that's no reason to believe Bayh isn't Obama's pick. In fact, the opposite is just as likely.

 

Odds: At this point, only "The One" knows. But it's easy to see why so many people have thought for so long that Bayh would be Obama's best bet.

 

For starters, he's the only hybrid candidate on a shortlist dominated by old Washington pros (Biden, Sam Nunn) and young, inexperienced "change agents" (Kaine, Kathleen Sebelius). As a former governor and current member of Senate Armed Services Committee and Select Intelligence Committee, Bayh would provide his prospective boss with the executive experience, practical domestic policy expertise and foreign-policy credentials that Republicans say Obama lacks; meanwhile, at a youthful 52, he's also a member of Obama's post-Boomer cohort who would help Democrats cast the choice between the tickets as generational in nature--a choice, the thinking goes, between the oldest person ever elected to a first term as president and a pair of handsome young leaders. (Think Clinton-Gore '92.) That's a unique qualification. What's more, Obama has a real chance to win Indiana--a state that voted for George W. Bush by 20 points in 2000 and 15 points in 2004, but where the Illinois senator currently has a narrow lead in the polls. Picking Bayh--the son of a former Indiana senator, he swept his four statewide races by record margins and has enjoyed approval ratings as high as 80 percent--could easily tip the Hoosier State into the Democratic column. And Bayh's bond with working-class white Midwesterns hit hard by manufacturing losses--a group reluctant to embrace Obama--might help the ticket in nearby Michigan, Missouri and Ohio as well. 

 

Even Bayh's supposed weaknesses start to look like strengths upon closer examination. Widely considered "vanilla" or "boring" by Beltway insiders, Bayh would, according to Cillizza, "be a charisma drain" on the wildly charismatic Democratic nominee, "break[ing] up the logic of the ticket [by] turning Obama into a conventional candidate in a year when out-of-the-box appeal is the hot commodity." But while it's impossible to imagine any Dems abandoning the ticket because of an unexciting No. 2, it's pretty easy to imagine voters turned off by Obama's flash feeling reassured by Bayh's substance-over-style approach to politics. Not to mention the fact that Obama needs an on-message surrogate (and an effective sidekick) more than a fellow celebrity. Then there's issue of Bayh's centrist voting record. A former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, the Indiana senator has angered liberal activists by supporting a ban on so-called "partial-birth" abortions and co-sponsoring the 2002 Iraq War resolution--a stance that contradicts the core rationale of Obama's candidacy. But the truth is, the number of moderate swing-state votes Obama stands to gain by choosing a centrist--Bayh was also known for stressing fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, job creation and lean government while governor of Indiana--far outstrips the number of defectors or stay-at-homers such a choice would create on the left. (You think these guys are going to vote for McCain?) Finally, as national co-chair of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, Bayh said some things about Obama--like "the job of the next president is not to be entertainer in chief," for example--that would inevitably show up in Republican attack ads this fall. But the symbolism of choosing a former Clinton confidant would more than compensate the inconvenience. 

 

That said, it's undeniable that Bayh's stock has plummeted in recent days. The reason, we suspect, is trust. Given that Bayh was always the "safe" pick--and, as a Clintonite, something of outsider (if not an antagonist) in Obama's world--it's difficult to imagine that the Illinois senator ever felt any personal excitement at the prospect of a partnership. Then came word yesterday morning, via Bloomberg News, that Bayh "may face questions about potential conflicts of interest from his wife's work on seven corporate boards that paid her more than $837,000 last year"--including a medical group awarded a $24.7 million federal grant after being recommended by Bayh to the National Institutes of Health; a Indianapolis radio-station operator that published Bayh's 2003 memoir; and E*Trade Bank (Bayh sits on the Senate Banking Committee). Bayh's spokesman told Bloomberg that he's gone "above and beyond what is required under Senate ethics rules'' to prevent possible conflicts. But one can't help but wonder whether Obama didn't think back to John Kerry's advice from last spring (as reported by the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder) when given this information by his veep vetters Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy. Choose someone, Kerry told successor, that you trust completely. Don't expect the process to build trust. Don't choose someone with the expectation that you'll develop a trust.

 

We'll see soon enough whether Obama agrees.