Six Reasons Evan Bayh Is Retiring
If you unexpectedly leave Washington, the Beltway assumes some dark personal secret. And that's exactly why the senator is getting out.
By Howard Fineman | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 16, 2010
On his last day as a senator, in the early 1980s, Sen. Birch Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, took his 25-year-old son Evan on a private tour inside the dome of the Capitol and up to the lookout atop it. There, father and son gazed down on a spectacular, rarely seen, view of the Mall and the city of ambition.
The perspective is both inspiring and sobering. It is monumental, literally: Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, the giants of our country. But the view also makes the living people in the distance seem insignificant, and the idea of their individual striving at best comical, at worst pathetic.
Now, almost 30 years later, Sen. Evan Bayh, also a Democrat from Indiana, is preparing to leave the Senate, and he is thinking of doing that same tour. Now he is the fatherly guide and amateur historian—for his twin 14-year-old sons.
Bayh is aware of the symmetry, but also of what he regards as the differences. His own father was leaving after losing a race in Indiana; his own father had not always been a vigilant parent. Evan wants to go out on his own political terms, and also as a more attentive father and family man.
(More here.)
By Howard Fineman | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 16, 2010
On his last day as a senator, in the early 1980s, Sen. Birch Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, took his 25-year-old son Evan on a private tour inside the dome of the Capitol and up to the lookout atop it. There, father and son gazed down on a spectacular, rarely seen, view of the Mall and the city of ambition.
The perspective is both inspiring and sobering. It is monumental, literally: Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, the giants of our country. But the view also makes the living people in the distance seem insignificant, and the idea of their individual striving at best comical, at worst pathetic.
Now, almost 30 years later, Sen. Evan Bayh, also a Democrat from Indiana, is preparing to leave the Senate, and he is thinking of doing that same tour. Now he is the fatherly guide and amateur historian—for his twin 14-year-old sons.
Bayh is aware of the symmetry, but also of what he regards as the differences. His own father was leaving after losing a race in Indiana; his own father had not always been a vigilant parent. Evan wants to go out on his own political terms, and also as a more attentive father and family man.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home