EVAN BAYH, United States Senator

Notes of Concern....

...Jackson Blair





The Honorable United States Senator

Evan Bayh



I was sad to learn that Evan Bayh reached a decision to leave the United States Senate. Senator Bayh is a very fine senator and he represented his state of Indiana with dignity, dedication and love. As a nation we need more people of his integrity representing us in our nation's capital.



I encountered the Senator a very long time ago at camp. He was a camper. I was a counselor. I suppose I knew hundreds of kids during those summers but he stood out because his father was the United States Senator from Indiana, Birch Bayh, and his mother was a well know beauty queen, Marvella Bayh.



Birch and Marvella moved in some pretty powerful circles. They were great friends of Ted and Joan Kennedy as well as of Jack and Jackie Kennedy and the then California Senator John Tunney. Both Bayhs were on the plane that crashed injurying Ted Kennedy and killing other passengers.



Their names were in the news columns regularly and for some time Birch Bayh was mentioned as a potential presidential candidate for the Democrats. Interestingly, President Lyndon Johnson asked Marvella Bayh to be vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, a job she declined.



Marvella was powerful in her own right. She had breast cancer, a disease that ultimately claimed her life. Knowing that she would not be cured, she took on the job as spokesman for the American Cancer Society and worked tirelessly with them in a search for a cure.



Many years later my wife and I attended the birthday party of an old friend in Tuxedo Park, New York. We were seated at a table with Birch and Marvella Bayh. It was inevitable we would discuss the camp where I met Evan so many years before. They told me Evan was just completing his undergraduate degree and trying to decide whether to attend law school or seek an MBA.



I remember being far more impressed by Mrs. Marvella Bayh than her husband, Senator Birch Bayh.



During the festivities I mentioned an aunt of mine who was hospitalized in Pittsburgh with breast cancer. It was just part of a discussion of what Marvella was doing. She asked about the particulars and then shared with me what she had learned about breast cancer.



A few days later I had a telephone call from my aunt. Marvella Bayh had called her and they spoke about her specific cancer diagnosis for about an hour. To say my aunt was pleased would be an understatement. The next day, my aunt called again. She had just gotten off the phone with Betty Ford, the wife of the President, who had called her because “Marvella had asked her to”.



The Bayhs were a potent team and a huge force for good.



Birch Bayh was a United States Senator but his wife, Marvella, was an amazing “people person” in her own right.



A week later young Evan appeared in my office in New York City to talk about his career choices and to explore how each one might work out for him. His parents had asked if they could send him. Obviously, the legal route could lead him into politics, in his father’s footsteps. The MBA choice would undoubtedly lead him to a Wall Street career and a great deal of personal wealth.



The rest is history. Evan decided on law school. I had no contact with him for years. Eventually, I read of his election and re-election as Governor of Indiana. More important were the stories of how popular he was in his state and what a great job he was doing.



Eventually the national Democratic Party got wind of Governor Bayh and he was off to the United States Senate.



During his tenure in the Senate he made many friends on both sides of the aisle. Presidential contenders all had him on their “short list” for vice president.



After the Bush-Kerry contest, I received a letter from Senator Evan Bayh telling me he planned to run for his party’s presidential nomination the next time around. He had not yet announced to the press his intention.



He mentioned our camp experiences as well as our visit when he was finishing his undergraduate education. It had been years! I had to marvel at how he had inherited his parents’ talent for the details. If he reached back that many years to write me, imagine how many hundreds of others he must have written.



The Bayh campaign did not catch fire. Senators from Indiana rarely do in presidential politics. Both Obama and Clinton flirted with the idea of having Bayh on a ticket but we all know how that turned out.



It is clear now that Evan Bayh found there was little that could be accomplished in the United States Senate of today. Even with his own party in control of both houses of Congress, as well as The White House, the things important to Bayh could not get done.



On reflection, he must have realized having been passed over twice for the Veep nomination and having failed to ignite any interest as a presidential candidate meant he would not have the clout necessary to make any real change in the way Washington does things.



So the Senator, with his attractive wife and handsome sons, gave up his coveted spot in the” Club of 100” and headed back to join his Hoosier friends in the Midwest. He will be happy there. They will be happy to have him back. And somehow, it just seems “right” for this good man to have his life back.



He is too young to retire. We will undoubtedly see him run for Governor again or perhaps become President of a large university, probably in Indiana.



As I was thinking about all of this and writing this column I had in my mind the young, enthusiastic camper who wanted so not to be known as the son of famous parents. Seeing him with his own children it occurred to me that perhaps he wanted that for his own sons.



I also reflected on how different things might have been if Evan Bayh had instead decided to pursue an MBA.



And I wonder if today he wishes he had.