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Evan Bayh shocked the political world today with his announcement that he will not seek reelection in 2010. Below is my post in response to the POLITICO Arena question on the topic. My former White House and Bush-Cheney ‘04 colleague Rob Saliterman pointed out to me today the fate of a sitting President seems to be somewhat determined by whether or not they face a primary challenge when running for reelection. Rob noted: “no modern president who had a serious primary challenge has ever been reelected (LBJ, carter, 41) and no modern president who was unchallenged in the primary (eisenhower, nixon, clinton, 43) has ever lost reelection.” Wise point. Former Bush-Cheney 2000 and White House colleague Ken Lisaius suggested the primary challenge angle with Bayh. It could be him. It could be Dean. It could be someone else. If his approval numbers continue to slide, it can’t be ruled out as a possibility. Here’s my response from the POLITICO.

Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh won his last election by 24 percent. He won that race in 2004 at the same time President Bush won the state of Indiana by a 20 point margin. So, clearly Sen. Bayh has had the ability to attract crossover votes in his career. However, I would imagine he has seen an incredible erosion in his support since President Obama took office. For someone who has never lost election, Bayh must be looking to get out of the way of the GOP tidal wave that seems increasingly likely to sweep across the country in November. There’s also a chance that he’s looking to 2012. He may be trying to position himself as a moderate, somewhat non-partisan outsider who can run against a weakened, liberal President Obama. Engaging in a deeply partisan race for reelection this year against former Sen. Dan Coats wouldn’t serve that interest.

Check out this video showing of some cool new features of Bing Maps, a project my brother Steve works on for Microsoft. You can see his thoughts on the demo at his posterous site.

Many people at the TED conference were impressed, including Robert Scoble (@scobleizer, with 114,000 followers) who tweeted this -

Microsoft just blew our minds by putting live video and Worldwide telescope together on maps. Wow.

Below is my response to today’s POLITICO Arena: The health care summit: Why should, or shouldn’t, the GOP go along with it?

Republicans should confidently accept the invitation to talk about health care with President Obama. Questioning the rules of engagement at the session is a little like complaining about the referees at a sporting event. Athletes tend to do it a lot, but it really isn’t very productive and it makes you look whiny and weak. Additionally, Americans watching the game at home know when something seems fishy and unfair. They are smart and can make their own judgments. They don’t need to hear it from the players.

Republicans should come to the session prepared to talk about all of the ideas they’ve offered over the past year to improve our health care delivery system – ideas which have, thus far, been ignored by President Obama, Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Reid. If the GOP engages, demonstrates (again) that it is the party of real ideas and free market solutions, and forces President Obama to say he doesn’t like their effective ideas, Republicans will have a successful day. Let’s not forget that the issue of health care reform has been a constant drag on President Obama’s job approval ratings all year. One half day session for the cameras isn’t going to turn that around for him. So, it isn’t a detriment to GOP prospects if he has already forgotten his State of the Union focus (remember jobs, jobs, jobs anyone?) by continuing his wrong-headed obsession with taking over 1/6 of the U.S. economy

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I was asked to be on the Fox News “Happening Now” program yesterday to discuss the debate over how to create jobs. Jon Scott conducted the interview and I appeared with Richard Socarides, a former advisor to President Bill Clinton. The interview was cut a bit short so they could move to video of a plane attempting to land with no landing gear down. If you can make the arrangements, it is always advantageous to conduct the interview in person, rather than remotely via satellite. When you can look someone in the eye (rather than stare into a camera), it makes it much easier to gauge the response of the host, jump in to make points and have a normal conversation.

I’m down on the SW Washington coast in Ocean Shores, Washington, for the first annual Roanoke Conference. It’s a conference for Republicans from throughout the state and I think is a great example of the GOP energy at the grassroots.

There’s a lively discussion going on about the conference on Twitter. You can follow the official Twitter account – @roanokeconf, or watch the discussion with the hashtag #roanokeconf.

The official website for the conference is www.roanokeconferernce.org and the Facebook page is www.facebook.com/roanokeconference.

My thoughts on President Obama’s visit to the House Republican retreat in Baltimore for the POLITICO Arena.

I commend President Obama for following President Bush’s example by visiting the House retreat of the opposition party. This type of interaction is productive to our democracy, as it tends to lower the temperature of the overheated Beltway rhetoric.

Today’s discussion was not only good for the prospects of real progress in Washington, it was likely good for President Obama. He was able to respond to questions from House Republicans at length, without interruption. He was given ample time to explain his views and skillfully talked about areas where he felt GOP ideas had been adopted (even if those ideas were rejected by Democratic leaders in Congress).

It was good for Republicans to invite him, but next time the GOP event planners should insist that a “cuts camera” be utilized for television coverage. This would allow people watching at home to see the faces of the members posing questions, instead of what happened today – where questions, which were pointed at times, were lobbed from a dark room by unseen questioners. Visuals matter and create an impression for viewers. Today’s visuals conveyed that President Obama was standing firm in the bright lights while Republicans were in the dark (hiding).

I’ve previously said here on The Arena that President Obama should follow President Bush’s lead in reaching out if he truly wants to change the tone in Washington. Today, he took a step in that direction. Both he and House Republicans should be applauded for what took place.

Here’s my brief reaction to President Obama’s State of the Union address and the Politico Arena question: How did he do?

Tonight, in a lengthy speech, President Obama gave lip service to market-based approaches to strengthening the economy (like trade and tax relief, which he and his party vehemently oppose in practice). He inappropriately condemned the justices of the Supreme Court sitting in front of him by criticizing their recent judgment reaffirming free speech. His remarks, while well-crafted, will be remembered for being forgettable. There were no bold proposals or signature lines. He may be a prisoner of his speaking prowess, as a well-delivered speech which lacks provocative thinking and doesn’t shatter high expectations is quickly discarded.

What a difference a year makes…

Following is my response to today’s POLITICO Arena question: “Is David Plouffe the answer to the administration’s troubles?”

President Obama enjoys very large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, yet he has struggled to enact his agenda. His campaign pledge to bring a new way of business to Washington by rising above partisanship was seemingly vanquished in his inauguration address. While his primary qualification for being president was that he ran a great presidential campaign, his lack of executive and management experience has been on full display as he has failed to govern effectively. His solution? A new adviser. That new adviser’s resume?

• Harkin for U.S. Senate – 1990
• Harkin for President – 1992
• Olver for Congress – 1992
• Oberly for U.S. Senate – 1994
• Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – 1995
• Torricelli for U.S. Senate – 1996
• Rep. Dick Gephardt (Deputy Chief of Staff) – 1997/1998
• Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – 1999/2000
• AKP&D Message and Media (campaign consultant) – 2000
• Gephardt for President – 2004 cycle
• Obama for U.S. Senate – 2004
• Patrick for Governor – 2006
• Obama for President – 2007/2008

So, in order to be a more effective leader and to achieve more governing successes, President Obama has determined that he needs to be more political? Save the brief stint in Rep. Gephardt’s official office, David Plouffe’s entire resume is built on running political campaigns.

Maybe Candidate Obama really believed he could be a different kind of leader and usher in a new post partisan era. President Obama, however, hasn’t taken any steps to make good on that campaign promise. He has repeatedly taken a partisan approach, has been in lock step with his Democrat allies in Congress who’ve shut out Republicans from policy discussions and he has placed greater importance on style over substance. Calling up political guru David Plouffe to join the already partisan team of David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel is just one more clear indication that President Obama plans to wage a permanent campaign from the Oval Office.

I was quoted in this CNN story by White House reporter Ed Henry (@edhenrycnn). My quote speaks for itself, but I would add that I think it is important for politicians, elected officials, CEOs and other public figures who have Twitter accounts to do the tweeting themselves. Barack Obama never tweeted from @BarackObama (despite the “verified” account of the 44th President of the United States), but I’ll bet many of the followers thought he was during the campaign. In fact, wasn’t his Election Night victory tweet in the first person? Kudos to the person who digs that up. On the other hand, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (@chuckgrassley) does all his own tweeting. You go, CEG. Show ‘em how it’s done!

Obama’s first ‘tweet’ makes presidential history
Posted: January 18th, 2010 07:56 PM ET

From CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry

Washington (CNN) – Digital history was made Monday when President Obama became the first commander-in-chief to “tweet” a message on the social networking site, though he had a little bit of help.

When Obama stopped at the headquarters of the American Red Cross’ to promote aid to Haiti, a member of the agency’s new media team wrote a message on Twitter.com telling people he had arrived.

“President Obama and the first lady are here visiting our disaster operation center right now,” the Red Cross staffer wrote.

The new media staffer then asked the president to hit “Update” on the screen and Obama posted the item himself under the @RedCross handle at Twitter.com.

A moment later the Red Cross staffer posted a follow-up tweet: “President Obama pushed the button on the last tweet. It was his first ever tweet!”

White House aides told CNN they believe it is Obama’s first-ever tweet. During the presidential campaign, the Obama team used the @BarackObama account to send out quick messages in the then-senator’s voice, but he did not physically post the items himself, a disappointment to some of his techie supporters.

And after the @BarackObama account took a brief respite after the 2008 election, Gawker.com poked fun by saying his followers had been “Twittered into contributing money and time, and then passed over for more presidential means of communication. Like, say, press conferences.”

Aides to former President George W. Bush told CNN that he never published a tweet, and they were happy to crown Obama as the first tweeting President – with a catch.

“Welcome to Twitter, Mr. President – I’ll follow you if you follow me,” Tony Fratto, a former Bush spokesman, joked to CNN by e-mail.

It’s unlikely the president will be doing much tweeting in office, however. White House personnel – other than a couple of top aides such as Bill Burton – are restricted from using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. There are security concerns with White House computers, and administration officials are also not supposed to be tweeting on taxpayer time.

Besides, the commander-in-chief is a little busy to be re-tweeting the latest cat video on YouTube.

In fact, he admitted to never using Twitter during his trip to China late last year.

“Let me say that I have never used Twitter,” Obama said in response to a question from a Chinese student about using Twitter freely in China. Obama continued: “I noticed that young people – they’re very busy with all these electronics. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone.”

That may have upset some of the president’s supporters, who thought he was tweeting during the campaign, a point Republicans are only too happy to highlight.

“It’s great President Obama is using social media to build support for much-needed Haiti relief. But, if this was his first Tweet, who is @BarackObama?” asked former Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel, who noted that the @BarackObama is “verified” as being used by the 44th President of the United States.blockquote>