Evan Bayh may or may not have won his race this year had he not decided to retire.  But this is good news for Democrats for two reasons.  First, Bayh’s departure makes it possible to run someone in his place who will fight on the Employee Free Choice Act, health reform and other measures that Bayh has either opposed or supported only tepidly.  If a less right-wing Democrat can win (and, after all, Obama won Indiana), it adds real weight to the Obama agenda in the Senate.

Secondly, if a Teabaglican wins the seat, Democrats can start to clarify their message since (since Scott Brown) they no longer have a shot at the illusory 60th Senate vote and therefore have little incentive to negotiate to the point of passing merely symbolic legislation.  It could be a short term loss, but Democrats will be better off without Bayh…and throw Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landieu, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman into that category too.

Most swing voters are results voters.  They don’t care about ideology, philosophy, or even whose fault it is when things go wrong.  Half probably don’t pay much attention to politics until about September of an election year.  They care about what the economy is now and what they think it is likely to be in the near future.  If you happen to be in the seat when it’s good, you’re good.  If it’s bad, you’re out.

What that means is that we need to elect those people who really believe in progressive change, will fight for it, and know how to persuade those who are paying close attention that it will yield results.  When it does, we win again.

The Bayh approach is play toward the mythical middle, accomplish little, and hope Wall Street is happy enough to fund our campaigns.  Don’t make any waves and hope people like the status quo.  And that’s not good enough.