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By MARK SCHOEFF JR in Washington and BRIAN A. HOWEY in Indianapolis.
Vice presidential candidates and doctors share a common principle: First, do no harm. No one has exemplified that rule better than Evan Bayh in his first decade of service in the U.S. Senate. It is a body he entered in January 1999 facing his first votes on the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
It turns out that his prudence may have served him well by putting Bayh near the top of Sen. Barack Obama’s list of potential running mates. If Obama is looking for someone who is smart, articulate, safe and a proven winner in a Republican-leaning state, Indiana’s junior senator is straight from central casting.
Bayh’s defining characteristic during his Senate tenure has been caution. He rarely takes risky policy positions - and he rarely takes a political hit. In fact, in his most notable roll of the dice, he didn’t even mean to step up to the table.
Bayh ended his own presidential candidacy in December 2006, months before the first primary and after the emergence of Sen. Barack Obama as the primary challenger to Hillary Rodham Clinton. "He knows when to hold ‘em and when to throw ‘em," said St. Joseph County Democratic Chairman Butch Morgan. "He knew if there was going to be an alternate to Hillary Clinton, it wasn’t going to be him. He just has those kind of instincts. We talked about helping someone and whether he would be in line for the vice president."
"He called and said, ‘Can you support Hillary?’" Morgan said, becoming one of many prominent Hoosier Democrats to do so. Bayh was positioning himself nicely for vice presidency. Like the rest of the nation, Clinton and Bayh were surprised by the deft race Obama ran to capture the Democratic nomination. Bayh remained fiercely loyal to Clinton, helping her eke out a win in the Indiana primary.
In an ironic twist, that service may have increased Bayh’s value to the Obama campaign, which is still mending fences with Clinton supporters. Perhaps that healing process would be accelerated by putting one of her most ardent backers on the ticket. The drawbacks of doing so are limited. Bayh has served in the Senate in a way that has created few enemies, except, perhaps, for pro-choice activists who are suspicious of his vote against partial-birth abortion. Otherwise, it’s difficult to attack someone who has made promoting fatherhood a signature effort.
"He really hasn’t gone out on a limb on any issues or policies–certainly not controversial ones," said Paul Helmke, former Fort Wayne mayor and Bayh’s opponent in his first Senate race. "That’s not a criticism. Caution is good."
Bayh’s temperate manner shouldn’t be mistaken for timidity. After taking 64 percent of the vote against Helmke, he is no longer seriously challenged in a state that is considered red on most political maps.
His ascendance is due to much more than his political pedigree as the son of a respected and admired senator, Birch Bayh. The younger Bayh has worked hard to place himself in the middle of the political spectrum. 
Republicans acknowledge that Bayh is a centrist - and they grudgingly give him credit for connecting with mostly conservative voters. "His political success has frustrated Republicans because of (our) inability to find an issue to use against him that has been inconsistent with the Hoosier electorate’s viewpoint," said a Hoosier Republican official who asked not to be identified. He described Bayh’s Senate career as "themeless" and designed to position him for the next arc in his political trajectory.
Offending Bayh doesn’t pay - even for the GOP. But he doesn’t do much to alienate Republicans or anyone else. "He’s very pragmatic," said Mary Meagher, his first Senate press secretary and now a managing director at Public Strategies Inc. "He has a bipartisan orientation." Former Bayh chief-of-staff William D. Moreau Jr. observes, "His biggest disappointments are the intractable partisanship and fiscal insanity."
Bayh had a chance to burnish his centrist credentials as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council from 2001 to 2005. He succeeded Sen. Joseph Lieberman, then a Connecticut Democrat, whom Bayh called a role model during his first media availability as a senator. Bayh teamed with Lieberman on the major piece of recent education legislation. Bayh also has reached out to Republicans. He joined presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain in 2001 on legislation to promote community service. He also has made a priority of forging a good working relationship with Sen. Richard Lugar.
On his side of the aisle, Bayh has been a catalyst for an informal group of centrists that have grown in influence.
Iraq
If Bayh had to take a vote back, it would probably be on the 2002 Iraq War Resolution. While campaigning as a presidential candidate in New Hampshire in 2006, Bayh explained, "It turned out some of the most important information we relied upon at that time just was not accurate. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The administration has proven to be terribly incompetent in the way they’ve carried this out. Of course, we’d make different decisions based upon different facts as we know them today."
Appearing before the Washington Post editorial board in 2006, Bayh refused to endorse a pull out. "We’ve got to be somewhere between ‘cut and run’ … and mindlessly staying the course," Bayh said. "You’ve got to have a sensible middle ground." Iraq is the one issue that a number of Hoosier Democrats have taken issue with the senator who delivered the party out of the desert in 1988.
In the aftermath, - like he did with his approach to trade with China - Bayh took conspicous stances that refined and sometimes corrected his initial position. He was one of the first Members to call for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as it became clear how the Phase IV of the occupation was in atrophy. He voted against Condoleezza Rice’s secetary of state confirmation.
An example of Bayh’s Senate work comes with his decision to force the Pentagon to develop the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, which he secured $67 million in 2004 for Allison Transmission in Speedway to produce. It came as U.S. military fatalities in Iraq exploded due to roadside bombs with the insurgency spiking shortly after the occupation. Mo Davidson, who heads the Indiana UAW, said that Bayh’s advocacy has protected American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and "he’s been a great asset for Allison Transmission Local 933 as well as Rolls-Royce, and AM General in Mishawaka."
Moreau calls Bayh’s work on "up-armoring Humvees" his greatest achievement even if history has proven that his war authorization vote was a mistake. "Can you imagine a Defense Department that sends our best to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq and forces them to use home-made, scavenged ‘hillbilly armor’ to protect them from low-tech roadside bombs?" Moreau asked. "Evan Bayh made this push at time when the Pentagon was saying they didn’t need these vehicles, and troops were using spare parts sent by family members and what they could beg, borrow, steal or scavenge to outfit their vehicles. Evan really nailed Rumsfeld, took on the Pentagon and was proven right - the armored vehicles were needed and the lives of the good guys have been saved and more of the bad guys have been taken."
Davidson explained that when the Pentagon planned to cut the C-130 aircraft program, "Evan Bayh had them take another look into their strategy and needs" as a member of the Armed Services Committee.
"He has been instrumental in getting more orders for Rolls-Royce," Davidson said. "We’ve now got good equipment in the field and his foresight helped make that happen." How many jobs did these efforts impact here in Indiana? "Thousands," Davidson replied. Davidson and Bayh have each others’ cell phone numbers. "If he has questions, he will not hesitate to call me on the phone and visa versa."
As for AM General, Davidson said there was a Pentagon push for the MRAP to replace the Hummer. "The MRAP is a huge vehicle that is not as flexible as the Hummer," he said. "Some of the military studies were not accurate." With Bayh’s help, the Mishawaka plant will be producing the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. Yet another example is Bayh’s work on the issue of intellectual property theft. Davidson said that counterfeiters will literally produce an auto part and stamp GM or Chrysler logos on to the piece. "That has cost manufacturers billions a year. He’s been very instrumental in helping to stop that IP theft."
Bayh’s credentials on military issues was so sound that at the height of the Indiana presidential primary battle, Bayh joined Hillary Clinton at Allison and AM General on April 12 in an attempt to burnish what he called her "spine of steel" on co-joined defense and trade issues.
"In our eyes, he stands out," Davidson said. "He’s Indiana. He’s as big of an institution in Indiana as Sen. Lugar is."
National security
Former congressman and 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer, himself a potential vice presidential pick, credits Bayh as being "extremely helpful and an advocate of reform and new national security ideas." When he was pushing the establishment of the 9/11 Commission, "The Bush administration initially fought those reforms, We needed someone with national security credentials and who was bipartisian," Roemer said. "He provided strategic help to us and was one of our key sponsors."
As those attending the Purdue University national security forum last week with Obama saw, Roemer says that Bayh has a "thorough understanding of national and econoimc security issues. He understands the new transnational security threats. He also knows the intersection of economic security issues and people’s pocket books."
Trade
Although they are both centrists, Bayh is not nearly as aggressive a supporter of trade liberalization as former President Bill Clinton. Bayh couples votes to lower trade barriers with efforts to promote "fair trade."
For instance, Bayh came out in support of normal trade relations with China in 2000. Since then, he has written a bill called the Stopping Overseas Subsidies Act, which would allow the United States to impose penalties on foreign governments that give their companies free rent, electricity or materials that allow them to produce artificially low-priced goods. He also has sponsored a bill to combat intellectual property theft.
In more recent trade votes, he opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement but supported a free trade agreement with Peru.
"I am most struck by the fact that I truly think he gets it when it comes to understanding the impact of these unfair trade agreements on average Hoosier families," said Shaw Friedman, the former LaPorte County Democratic Chairman and a Bayh supporter since 1986. "It’s not just theory or anecdotes for him. I’ve been with him as he has traveled to plant gates or even day care centers. There is a deep understanding that what he does in Washington very much affects the lives of the people he serves."
Friedman explained that Bayh has the "willingness to stand up to the very powerful China business lobby in Washington and have the guts to ‘tell the emperor he has no clothes.’ That will be critical in the years ahead with China (being) such a force in trade, the environment and other issues.
"If he’s Vice President, I don’t see a President Obama simply dispatching him off to state funerals," Friedman said. "This is the kind of spokesman and negotiator that any president would want representing us at difficult trade talks or sensitive negotiations on disarmament. Beneath that cool exterior and genial smile is a will of steel and a cast iron bottom that wouldn’t leave a room until he got a deal that his country wanted and needed."
Fiscal responsibility
When Bayh entered the Senate in 1999, he sought out former governors like Ohio’s George Voinovich and centrists like Sens. Landrieu, Carper, Bill and Ben Nelson and Republicans like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. "He is drawn to and certainly prefers working with colleagues who are pragmatic rather than stridently partisan," Moreau explained. "After all, he learned as governor of Indiana that the best solutions are the ones that are reached in a common-sense, bipartisan, pragmatic way."
One area where Bayh can line up with conservative Democrats and Republicans is on spending issues. Former aide Mary Meagher says that Bayh prefers the term "fiscally responsible" to "fiscally conservative." His approach is informed by his years as governor, when he was responsible for the budget.
"His experience as an executive really influences his mindset as a legislator," Meagher said. "I truly believe Evan Bayh has an executive mindset, born of the way he began his public service career as Secretary of State and, of course, Governor," Moreau said. "I observed him assembling his team, setting the priorities and developing the plan of action. He demanded and received the highest level of performance from his people and didn’t take kindly to excuses. The Senate is a place where a floor speech is considered a measurement of action. Such process-trumps-product stuff drives Evan Bayh crazy."
One of the first examples of Bayh’s approach came on the 2001 legislation that contained President Bush’s first round of tax cuts. Bayh ultimately voted against it because of his concern about increasing the deficit. Bayh tried to thread the needle by promoting an alternative version of the measure that contained a "trigger mechanism" that would prevent tax cuts in years when the budget was in deficit. The idea drew opprobrium from then-White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels.
On more recent fiscal matters, Bayh has voted for an earmark moratorium while also approving to override a presidential veto of the $307 billion farm bill. Earlier in his career, he voted against eliminating the estate tax.
Working with Lugar
As governor, Bayh had a good working relationship with U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar. When he joined the U.S. Senate in 1999, Lugar spokesman Andy Fisher said that the two senators "struck a good tone" right away in working together not only on Indiana projects, but there has been "a crossover of broader legislative issues and projects." 
There is a prominent photo of the two senators at their first meeting that hangs in Lugar’s Capitol Hill office. Fisher said the two talk often and meet for breakfast and lunch regularly.
The two also are adept at jointly announcing projects and grants that affect Indiana. Sources familiar with recent Hoosier Senate history describe the working relationship between Bayh and Lugar as better than those Lugar had with former Republican Sens. Dan Coats and Dan Quayle. "There’s not competition and rivalries to get things done for the state," Fisher said. "In some states you see an almost constant rivalry between the two senators."
As was prominently featured at Barack Obama’s forum at Purdue University last week, Bayh and Lugar are working on global nuclear energy with the goal of safeguarding the resulting fissile material from ending up in weapons programs. Bayh and Lugar drafted the legislation to fund the international fuel bank. Fisher predicts it will pass sometime in the next few years.
Fisher also noted that Hoosiers benefit from having their two senators serving on different committees: Lugar on Foreign Affairs and Agriculture; Bayh on Banking and Armed Services. "This is a relationship that started out on the right foot and has continued," Fisher said. "Their greatest strengths have been helping Indiana with a unified effort in the Senate."
Partial-birth abortion
The Bayh vote that could best be defined as a risk is the one he cast in 2003 to ban partial-birth abortion. It put him in line with many Hoosiers, but did lasting damage to his standing with the Democratic base. Bayh cast that vote from his heart and did not make any calculations about what it would do to him politically, according to a knowledgeable source.
Fatherhood
If there is a point on the moral compass that could most afix him to Obama’s rising star, it is fatherhood. The two come at it 180 degrees apart, Obama’s father left his family when he was age 2, and he was essentially raised by his mother, step-father, and then his grandparents. Bayh was what John Fogarty of Credence Clearwater Revival might call "the senator’s son; the fortunate one." He was 6 years old when House Speaker Birch Bayh upset U.S. Sen. Homer Capehart just weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis, a fact mentioned in one of the earliest scenes of the movie "Thirteen Days."
"Having served them both, I think father imparted to son many important lessons, including the importance of constituent service," Moreau explained. "I know how many times I heard Birch Bayh recount ‘the Black Lung Story,’ and I daresay Evan heard it 1,000 times more." Birch Bayh, who authored two amendments to the U.S. Constitution, would tell people how a caseworker in his office worked doggedly to help a coal miner get black lung disease benefits in his final years. It formed the core of "why we serve." That has translated from father to son occupying the same Senate seat.
Both Bayh and Obama have written books about their fathers. Bayh’s 2003 book "From Father to Son: A Private Life in a Public Eye" recounts the story of his relationship with his parents that brought him from Shirkieville, Ind., to the White House, where, as a 9-year-old boy he was fascinated to watch President Lyndon Johnson change TV channels with a James Bond-like remote control and then prop his feet up on the dinner table. Obama wrote "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" that he wrote long before he became a U.S. senator and was published in 1995. In this book, Obama formed an image of his absent father from stories told by his mother and her parents. The two families have young children: Bayh’s 12-year-old twin sons; Obama’s young daughters.
"Evan’s fatherhood took an abstract notion and made it a everyday reality: any decent public official thinks about how his/her policies will affect the next generation," Moreau explained. "For the last 12-plus years, Evan has two faces in his mind when he thinks about policymaking."
In working through a staff-provided summary of Bayh’s Senate record, his legislation ranges from making school buses more efficient; protecting military families by eliminating the "Patriot Penalty" for National Guard and reservists; punishing banks who foreclose on homes of military families; forcing the Bush administration to provide extra funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Programs; and passing a $12,000 tax deduction for college tuition.
In one case where the war and families came together was the case of Indiana National Guardsman Sgt. Gerald Cassidy, who died alone at the Fort Knox Warrior Transition Unit after suffering wounds in Iraq. Bayh passed legislation that required the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration to establish maximum waiting times for soldiers seeking specialty care, diagnostic referrals and surgery.
From Senate to Vice President?
Bayh is at the top of some conspicuous veepstakes speculation. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza has him listed at No. 1. "At 52 (he looks younger), Bayh would allow Obama to cast the choice between the tickets as generational in nature," Cillizza wrote. "McCain’s age is certain to be an issue for voters in the fall election — at 72 he would be the oldest person ever elected to a first term as president — and many Democrats see this election shaping up as a re-run of the 1992 race when the underlying choice was between young and old. For many Democrats, an Obama-Bayh ticket would look a lot like that 1992 Clinton-Gore ticket — a successful blueprint that led to eight years of Democratic control of the White House. Although Bayh is on the young side, he also has a deep and nuanced political resume that would seemingly allow Obama to fight back against the inexperience charge being lobbed at him. Bayh can speak authoritatively on a broad palette of issues ranging from tax cuts to American policy toward China — the result of his years spent in both state and federal government."
In a companion piece arguing against Bayh’s nomination, Cillizza writes, "Depending on how you look at it, Bayh’s centrist approach to governance is either evidence of his commitment to bipartisanship or a sign that he doesn’t believe in much of anything. Bayh is almost always in the ideological center of the Senate — a position that has served him well in terms of electoral politics but has left many people wondering exactly what sits at the core of Bayh’s governing philosophy. One close observer of Bayh’s decade in the Senate argued that he has yet to distinguish himself in that body, adding that there isn’t a single issue on which Bayh has led."
And, Cillizza adds, "Bayh would be a charisma drain. He would break up the logic of the ticket, turning Obama into a conventional candidate in a year when out-of-the-box appeal is the hot commodity."
If his abortion record doesn’t knock Bayh out of contention as a vice presidential candidate, Senate politics might. Democrats covet a 60-vote majority that would deny Republicans the opportunity to filibuster bills. Even in a political year that is shaping up as well for Democrats as this one, it will be tough to attain the magic Senate number.
That goal might be put out of reach, if an Obama/Bayh ticket is elected. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels enjoys a commanding lead in his re-election race at the moment. If he prevails in November and Bayh heads to the White House, Daniels would get to choose Bayh’s successor and add to the GOP Senate column.
"For all the effort Democrats put into picking up a seat, I don’t think they want to give one away," said Helmke, who is now president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Another state Republican asserts that Bayh would do what’s best for his career. "I sense Evan Bayh would rather be vice president than worry about who’s going to be in that Senate seat," he said.
Moreau said, "If I were advising Sen. Obama (which I am not), I’d pick Evan because I’d want a pragmatic, results-driven, loyal partner who has actually had to govern during tough economic times. I’d want someone at my side who has drafted and passed budgets, hired and fired people, worked with and inspired business and labor to focus on economic development, and stood up to and balanced the many competing interests. There isn’t a great deal Evan Bayh hasn’t experienced. Evan Bayh can see around corners."
Friedman explained, "Frankly, if he’s named as a vice presidential nominee, the national press predictably will focus on superficial things like his good looks and All-American family which are certainly true. Some of us who know the guy understand there is also a tremendous substance, sense of compassion and intellect that would serve him very well as Vice President."
The years of 2007 and 2008 have provided some of the sharpest images of Bayh as a Hoosier power center. The "charisma drain" was absent when Bayh spoke emotionally about Hillary Clinton at the Anderson Wigwam in March and while introducing her at her victory speech on May 5 in Indianapolis. While the mostly-accurate Obama models had him winning Indiana, most credit what Bayh called a "seamless" integration of his political organization with Clinton’s with the resulting, albeit tiny, win.
"Obama’s group thought they were going to win Indiana and they credit him and the hard work of the Clinton for her win," said Morgan, adding, "Evan never said a bad word about Barack Obama." In a twist of irony, Obama’s defeat in his neighboring state may be drawing him to Bayh as a running mate.
Obama, whose ascension clipped Bayh’s presidential bid, then prompting him to seek his future with the wife of an impeached president he would defend, has set the stage in Indiana with more than two dozen loccal offices and poll numbers that show Indiana’s 11 Electoral College votes in play.
The question to be answered in the next 10 days will be whether he thinks Sen. Bayh can deliver those votes to the blue column.
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