Elsewhere in Campaign '08--y'know, the Hillary vs. McCain race--it's "Bye-bye, Bayh," while Dennis K throws a scare into front runner Tom Vilsack

Dennis Kucinich's recent announcement of his presidential candidacy of course turned the Democratic field into a two-man race. Now, in a CQPolitics interview, Marie Horrigan writes:

Kucinich contends he is the only current or likely candidate in the 2008 Democratic field to reject the war from the beginning and also to vote against funding the war. He touts this as a credential that will make him a much stronger contender in his second run than in his first.

“I’m in a position to save the presidency for the Democratic Party and to be elected the next president because people will know not only is there someone who has had the foresight on this and a plan, but people will know that my leadership can implement the plan,” he said.

Meanwhile, making good on our note from the other night, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh has followed through on his threat to take himself the heck out of the race, saying in a statement:

The odds were always going to be very long for a relatively unknown candidate like myself, a little bit like David and Goliath. And whether there were too many Goliaths or whether I'm just not the right David, the fact remains that at the end of the day, I concluded that due to circumstances beyond our control the odds were longer than I felt I could responsibly pursue.

Now that Bayh isn't running, it hardly seems stop-the-presses type news. So it's hard to remember--already!--that there were people who were taking him seriously as a candidate. They were probably not people who encountered him as a pop-up stooge for corporate America in David Sirota's Hostile Takeover--or then again, maybe those were exactly the sort of people who took him "seriously."

I understand that Bye-Bye had $10 million in the bank for his mystical campaign. But I didn't contribute any of it, and none of the people who did, whoever they are, solicited my opinion about the grade of the investment. Me, I find it hard to imagine a more insubstantial presidential candidate.

Okay, who's the Macaca who shouted, "G. Felix Allen"?

It's a good answer, actually, but that's in the party that gave us George W. Bush as a presidential candidate. Of course, come to think of it, if we're looking for presidential candidate than whom it's hard to imagine a more insubstantial one, that's a title that's likely to remain permanently retired.

Unless, that is, lessons are drawn from the fact that the bozo wound up serving two terms in the White House.


EVAN BAYH VS. THE MACACA MAN:
FACEOFF OF THE FAMOUS FATHERS

In our battle of the lightweights, it doesn't look good for our Felix.

Evan Bayh's dad, Birch Bayh, was a highly competent three-term U.S. senator from Indiana. It's hard to know whether it's to his long-term credit or to his eternal shame that he lost his seat in 1981 to political superfeatherweight Dan Quayle.

Now, while it's true that Felix's dad, George "Baby, Cook Me Some of Them Fine Pork Chops" Allen, had significant success as coach of the Los Angeles Rams and the Washington Redskins, it's important to remember how bad he was at the job in some important ways. What Allen was most famous for as a coach was doing whatever he could to avoid playing inexperienced players. Oh, it was usually prettied up with talk of his admiration for veterans, which is fine. But a crucial part of the job of an actual coach is developing players, and the elder George by his own tacit admission sucked at it.

Just like his boy George sucks at, well, whatever the heck it is he's been doing all his professional life.