Nate Silver tries to find the silver lining in the announcement of Evan Bayh's Blue Dog equivalent in the Senate, and then concludes that it might not work out after all. I must confess it makes me nervous. If Bayh wants to form a "centrist" political caucus, he's going to have to put some distance between himself and the Dem caucus in general. That means that the Bayh caucus will have to oppose some of Obama's agenda in order to be "bipartisan" and not just a moderate caucus to help out Obama. My guess is that they would pick one or two things to declare independence: first, the nomination of Eric Holder for Attorney General is a possibility, though somewhat unlikely as it's probably a done deal and Karl Rove is trying to bring Holder down. It's the wrong kind of bipartisan. Second, Obama's climate change regulation. That seems ripe for some blue doggery (i.e. watering down). Finally, there's card check. That seems like a possible target, but it's antipartisan in a way that would diminish the power of the Bayh Dog caucus.
Climate change seems like the likely target then. It's high-profile, the Bayh Doggers will come from states indifferent to the threat, and environmentalists just don't have the sort of power that unions have within the Democratic Party. But I suppose we'll just have to see.
