Democrats Reel as Sen. Bayh Says No to 3rd Term -- He has been isolated for a year since warning Dem leaders they were scaring off independent voters.

From The New York Times:

Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election, sending a wave of distress over his fellow Democrats and focusing new attention on the view that unyielding partisanship had left Congress all but paralyzed.

Mr. Bayh, a centrist and the son of a former senator, used the announcement that he would not seek a third term to lambaste a Senate that he described as frozen by partisan politics and incapable of passing even basic legislation.

“For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should,” Mr. Bayh said. “There is too much partisanship and not enough progress — too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the people’s business is not being done.”

Mr. Bayh’s decision staggered Democrats. It was the latest in a series of setbacks that illustrate just how far the party’s fortunes have fallen since President Obama came to office more than a year ago, sweeping big majorities into the House and Senate with him.

Mr. Bayh was on the short list of candidates Mr. Obama considered for vice president before settling on Joseph R. Biden Jr. He was among the most prominent of moderate Democrats in Congress, but has been increasingly isolated over the past year as he has warned Democratic Congressional leaders that the push for big-ticket and expensive legislation was scaring off independent voters.

Mr. Bayh’s exit darkens what already was a bleak election map for Senate Democrats. Because of retirements, Democrats face tough odds in retaining seats in Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, North Dakota and now Indiana. Democratic incumbents face tough going in Arkansas and Nevada. Republicans, though, have their own problems as they struggle to hold on to seats left open by retirements in Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio.

What was most striking about Mr. Bayh’s announcement was the deep disillusionment he expressed with his place of employment, a feeling reflected in recent polls. In a New York Times/CBS News poll last week, 75 percent of respondents said they disapproved of the job Congress was doing; just 8 percent said members of Congress deserved re-election. Mr. Bayh pointed to the partisan standoff over efforts to create a commission to address the mounting national debt. Republicans blocked an effort pushed by Mr. Obama to create a bipartisan commission by legislation, with seven Republicans who had co-sponsored such an approach announcing they would vote against it.

In an interview, Mr. Bayh said he was startled at how much the Senate had changed since he arrived in 1998, and even more since his father, Birch Bayh, served in the Senate, from 1963 to 1981.

“This is colored by having observed the Senate in my father’s day,” Mr. Bayh said. “It wasn’t perfect; they had politics back then, too. But there was much more friendship across the aisles, and there was a greater willingness to put politics aside for the welfare of the country. I just don’t see that now.”

“In my father’s day, you legislated for four years and campaigned for two; now it’s full time. The politics never stops,” he said. “My bottom line is that there are a lot of really good people trapped in a dysfunctional system desperately in need of reform.”