From Cakewalk to Competitive

nationalreviewONLINE

by Robert Costa

Dan Coats is in . . . we think. The former senator released a statement this afternoon acknowledging his interest in challenging Sen. Evan Bayh (D., Ind.), but we agree with NBC’s Chuck Todd, who thinks the statement is a little murky, with its “test the waters” whimsy:

After much thoughtful consideration, I have authorized my supporters to begin gathering signatures as I test the waters for a potential challenge to Evan Bayh in 2010. Over the next few weeks, I will be talking to Hoosiers from all walks of life, and I will make a formal announcement regarding my intentions in the near future.

Indiana Republicans, however, are already gearing up for Coats v. Bayh. A senior Indiana GOP official tells National Review Online that Bayh better “think twice” before calling out Coats about his Virginia residency. “Senator Bayh lives in the Washington area now, and has for most of his life,” the official says. “Remember, Bayh grew up in Maryland, went to St. Alban’s, and came back to Indiana for a few years of college. But other than that, especially since he went to the Senate, Bayh was, and is, a man of Washington. To suggest Dan Coats isn’t a Hoosier is disingenuous.” Politically, he adds, “getting into a residency skirmish won’t make sense for Bayh because we’ll bring up not only his years as a Beltway resident, but his own residency problems in 1988, when he first ran.”

The official is referencing this case (h/t IU-PUI):

In Article 5, Section 7 of [Indiana’s] 1851 constitution, Indiana requires governors to have been “a resident of” the state for five years preceding election. Because no governor’s satisfaction of this requirement had ever been questioned, the constitutional language had never been interpreted – until 1988. In November, 1987, Evan Bayh announced his intention to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor in the 1988 election. However, for approximately thirteen months during the required five year period, Bayh worked in Washington, D.C. As a result, a question arose whether Bayh was “a resident of” Indiana while he lived and worked in Washington. His eligibility to serve as governor, if elected, was formally challenged by leaders of the Indiana Republican Party. Bayh argued that he had been “a resident of” Indiana his entire life even though he had temporarily lived elsewhere . . . For almost eight months, Bayh’s eligibility to serve was a focal point of public attention in the 1988 governor’s race. While Bayh and his opponents pursued answers in several legal forums, they also were competing for advantage in the most important forum of all – the court of public opinion. Finally, on April 28, 1988, the Indiana Supreme Court rendered a decision declaring Bayh eligible to serve, if elected.

Greg Sargent at Plumline says Bayh may have other troubles:

National Republican strategists working on the Indiana Senate race are drawing up a battle plan to target Senator Evan Bayh’s wife, whose work on multiple corporate boards has drawn criticism from good government advocates, as a way of offseting Dem attacks on Bayh’s expected challenger, GOP sources say.

The news broke this morning that former GOP Senator Dan Coats will challenge Bayh, and he’s widely seen as a major recruiting coup for the GOP. Dems promptly went on the offensive, blasting Coates as a lobbyist for private equity firms and defense contractors who is gaming the system for the banking industry at a “time of financial collapse.”

NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh tells me the GOP response will be this: Target Bayh’s wife, and the “Bayh family partnership.”

While two other Republicans, former Rep. John Hostettler and state Sen. Marlin Stutzman, are already in the GOP Senate primary, Robert Schmuhl, a political analyst and professor at the University of Notre Dame, tells NRO that a (possible) Coats entry makes the race a pick-up opportunity for Republicans. “Dan Coats brings immediate name recognition and stature to the Indiana Senate campaign and his announcement will move the race from cakewalk category for Evan Bayh to potentially competitive,” Schmuhl says. “Another Dan (Quayle) retired another Bayh (Birch), so Hoosiers with longer memories will be watching what happens closely. The question is whether Coats’s time out of government and his lack of Indiana ties in recent years will hurt his effort.”