Leading Democrat leaves over 'broken Congress'
Updated on 16 February 2010
Leading Democratic Senator Evan Bayh has become the latest senior politician to announce he won't be seeking re-election this November - because he says increasing partisan rancour has left Congress unable to act.
Another one bites the dust - or maybe the bullet.
Leading Democrat senator Evan Bayh has become the latest US politican to decide he has had enough of Washington, surprising his party, not to mention his own staff, by announcing he would not be seeking re-election this year.
Bayh told a press conference that he was sick of the partisan atmosphere on Capitol Hill, and said it was just more evidence that Congress was broken.
The recent failure of the jobs bill proved a final straw: "All of this and much more," he said, "has led me to believe that there are better ways to serve my fellow citizens, my beloved state, and our nation than continued service in Congress."
But was Bayh, who's never lost an election yet in his entire political career, just worried that the Republicans would sieze his Indiana seat?
A recent poll did put him a comfortable 20 points ahead.
But after Scott Brown's shock victory in the Massachusetts special election last month, the renowned centrist didn't waste much time warning the Democrats about the potential "catastrophe" they faced if they didn't heed the result.
The party, he complained, had moved too far to the left, and was leaving moderate voters behind.
Bayh's imminent departure is certainly more bad news for the Democrats. They have already lost their filibuster-busting majority in the Senate, which has stymied the much-vaunted healthcare bill, and much else besides.
Now with five Democratic senators retiring in November, some pundits are predicting the party could even lose its majority altogether.
Not that there is much love for the GOP out there in the country.
The public are growing increasingly disillusioned with both parties, and by implication - with politics in general.
So much for Barack Obama's election promise to change Washington for good.
