Evan Bayh is a Schmuck

Sorry Daily News, but sending texts and pictures to girls you never met does not make you a schmuck. But declining to run for reelection, decrying the negative influence money and hyper-partisanship has on politics, and then prostituting yourself out to those same moneyed interests? That's being a schmuck.

My views on lobbying are mixed; yes it is a constitutional protected right (check your first amendment), but the implicit promise that 'you do what I want and the campaign check will follow' certainly is not good for any governmental system. So I do not mean to say that all lobbyists are corporate shills, indeed some of them do noble work for worthy causes. But Bayh is a special case.

His Senate seat was coming up for an election in 2010, and he declined to run, because:

The threat of unlimited amounts of negative advertising from special interest groups will only make members more beholden to their natural constituencies and more afraid of violating party orthodoxies.
I can easily imagine vulnerable members approaching a corporation or union for support and being told: "We'd love to support you, but we have a rule. We only support candidates who are with us at least 90 percent of the time. Here is our questionnaire with our top 10 concerns. Fill it out." Millions of campaign dollars now ride on the member's response. The cause of good government is not served...
In my final 11 months, I will advocate for the reforms that will help Congress function as it once did, so that our generation can do what Americans have always done: convey to our children, and our children's children, an America that is stronger, more prosperous, more decent and more just.

So what did Bayh do after penning these noble words in the New York Times? First, while he was still in the Senate, he did not do a damn thing; no legislation, no hearings. He also kept all his campaign money to himself, and did nothing to help the Democrats hold on to the seat in Indiana. (A Republican, and former lobbyist, won the election) Once out of office, he joined the law firm McGuireWoods, known for their lobbying. Then he joined Fox News. Now he's joining the US Chamber of Commerce to "carry a bipartisan message on regulatory reform". And it will be bipartisan, if you consider the message that any and all business regulations are a socialist plot to be bipartisan (and if you disagree, there'll be no check). 

In summation, he left the Senate because of the influence of money and partisanship. He's now a lobbyist and on Fox News. My opinion: schmuck.