This post started out as a comment defending my friend and colleague James Boyce, who you can watch getting falsely accused of being a purity troll in this here diary, which I'm afraid has the highest comment to recommend ratio of any diary in the history of Daily Kos.
The point of this diary is that using new media tools that have been vital to the progressive community to roll out a boring, hawkish-for-a-Democrat VP nominee equivalent of a podiatrist is ironic, and that progressives would rather see a real progressive candidate get floated via Western Union telegram than Evan Bayh coming at you via Twitter. And I was surprised to see all the flames fly, when nowhere in the 40 comments and counting was a single person who actually seemed like they liked Evan Bayh any more than a cavity.
Actually, I wasn't surprised. No one likes Evan Bayh (except in Indiana, a state that hasn't gone blue since the LBJ landslide of '64), where they also like car racing a lot. Evan Bayh is the Mitt Romney of Democrats. He has all these qualities that people don't themselves like, but swear that there are tons of people who do. Like support for the war in Iraq, or pickled eggs. Give me a break.
(Actually, a far better argument is that Evan Bayh is the Dan Quayle of Democrats, which is the same thing as being the Mitt Romney of Democrats, only from Indiana.)
All kidding aside - I am a strong supporter of Obama's who whenever I am critical of him always take pains to make sure to be clear that I think he has the potential to be one of our greatest presidents and I will do everything in my power to help him win (and granted, I don't have the power to do much), and that includes making it clear when I think the campaign is misstepping - an action encouraged by the campaign itself.
I think that when a community of Obama's most ardent supporters pile on someone for stating that that campaign might be about to blow one of its most important decisions, yet there's not a single person willing to show up to defend the decision itself - literally not a single one, it might be a clue that choosing this clod, pandering, member of the mythical consensus-building center isn't the right choice. Just a hunch.
If someone can give me real concrete examples that they themselves, or people they know well that would really like to see Evan Bayh, or someone like him, on the ticket, I will stand corrected and take off my hat. But as long as every defense amounts to "who cares what I think of Evan Bayh, this mythical bloc of voters, none of whom I've ever seen in real life, want someone just like him", I will continue to say "please Barack, don't do it!" to the suggestion that Evan Bayh is 1) a bastion of the values that I would like to see in the halls of power and 2) the suggestion that he increases Obama's likelihood of winning.