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Book explains why Obama picked Biden over Bayh for VP | OnPolitics

http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/02/10/biden-vice-president-bayh-axelrod/

Book explains why Obama picked Biden over Bayh for VP
[image: President Obama and Vice President Biden share a laugh during a
Pennsylvania trip. (Gene J. Puskar, AP)]
<http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/02/10/biden-vice-president-bayh-axelrod/ap-aptopix-obama-a-usa-pa/#main>

President Obama and Vice President Biden share a laugh during a
Pennsylvania trip. (Gene J. Puskar, AP)

When President Obama was faced with the choice of over exuberance or under
enthusiasm in a running mate, he went with Joe Biden instead of Evan Bayh,
according to a new book.

David Axelrod, who was chief strategist for the 2008 presidential campaign,
writes in his memoir that Bayh was “low-key, even flat” when Axelrod and
campaign manager David Plouffe vetted him for the job.

“He presented himself more like an MBA interviewing for a senior management
position at Whirlpool,” Axelrod wrote in *Believer: My Forty Years in
Politics*.

The two aides had previously met with Biden, who had impressed them,
despite Biden’s verbosity. In what Axelrod called a two-hour monologue,
Biden talked about the world, the middle class, the challenges and
opportunities America faced and how he could help Obama.

Bayh, on the other hand, showed little emotion when interviewed — barefoot
and in shorts — at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia where he was
staying with his family. Bayh was still in the Senate representing Indiana
at the time of his interview to be Obama’s running mate.

“Next to that of Biden, who spoke energetically in big, historical terms,
Bayh’s vision of the vice-presidential role and the times we lived in
seemed decidedly small,” Axelrod wrote. “As we made our way back to the
plane, Plouffe and I agreed: Bayh would be a safe but uninspiring choice.”

Bayh said in an interview that he was honored to have been a finalist, but
has a “somewhat different take on the purpose of the interview.”

“I didn’t think it was my place to outline my own vision for the country or
the world,” Bayh said. “I thought that since they were talking to me about
the vice presidency, if chosen, my principal objective would be to offer
sound advice, to serve effectively and to be loyal to the president. Not to
chart my own agenda.”

How close Bayh came to being Obama’s running mate was first revealed in a
book Plouffe published in 2009. A list of about 20 names had been whittled
down to Bayh and Biden. Plouffe quoted Obama as calling it a “coin toss”
between the two.

Although Plouffe, like Axelrod, described Bayh as “never really relaxed”
during their meeting, he also said Bayh — when talking about his family —
“gave off a humanity and warmth that was very appealing, and showed a
dimension that belied his reputation.”

But the choice was Obama’s and, according to Axelrod, he didn’t feel the
connection.

“Barack wasn’t going to choose someone with whom he had little affinity,
knowing they could be partnered for years to come,” Axelrod wrote. “That
made Bayh unlikely.”


Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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