(Providence, Rhode Island)

Some of my good political friends think I am crazy. When Sen. Evan Bayh, (D-IN), announced the other day that he would not seek reelection, my first reaction was to suggest he was planning to run for President in 2012.

Yes, that’s right. I think he’s at least thinking about challenging President Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination if the economy does not get markedly better. Obama has no lock on reelection as some believe.

“It’s been a very, very frustrating experience for him, especially as of late” said former top aide Bill Moreau of Bayh’s two terms in the Senate. “He never has had what I call a legislative personality. He’s had much more of an executive personality.”

Bayh knows what its like to be an executive. He was a two-term Governor of Indiana before being elected to the U.S. Senate. In the most recent generations, being a governor has been the best path to the White House. Ask Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush II.

"After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so in Congress has waned," said Bayh. You see, as a U.S. Senator, he has to compete with 99 other agendas in the Senate and 435 separate agendas in the House. Being the lone President may suit him better.

The fact that the Democrats produced two wildly different health care reform bills in the Senate and House—despite having huge majorities to pass it into law—tells you how dysfunctional the party has become. As much as people want to blame Republicans for the defeat of health care legislation, it was really caused by the Democrats' inability to coalesce, just as they fell apart when the Clintons tried to pass health care in 1994.

My friend John G., who works in the news business and is a political junkie, sent me this comment: “The fact that a number of politicians lately have found the country virtually ungovernable, which seems to be what happened here, if you read a little bit between the lines, is frightening. And then there are about eight different tea parties ready to fill the void left by exiting politicians. When was the last time you had a government with lots of fragmented, unorganized parties and no clear leader and a desperate, angry and irrational populace?”

It’s an interesting question. Lots of politicians (and voters) are reevaluating the landscape after Scott Brown’s upset election in Massachusetts and the retirement of Patrick Kennedy here in Rhode Island. There are bound to be more political shockers.

Back in the late 1990s I rode an elevator with former Sen. Birch Bayh, Evan’s dad. We were the only two people who got in at the top floor of the National Press Club in Washington, DC. I knew I had only a minute to quiz the Indiana legend. With Evan’s governorship almost over and a rumored Senate run ahead, I asked the elder Bayh if he thought his son might run for President someday. “He’d be a good one,” said Birch Bayh as the elevator door opened and we went our separate ways.

Evan Bayh is a moderate Democrat, who might be able to govern better with more centrist members of both the Republican and Democratic parties. I don’t think he’s done with national politics at age 54.

Ronald Reagan was in a political pickle similar to Obama back in the early 1980s. After a disastrous economy under Jimmy Carter, Reagan’s first two years did not fare much better; and the GOP took a huge hit in the 1982 midterm elections. Obama may be on course for the same in 2010. But in 1983 the economy came roaring back, and Reagan was reelected in a landslide. We may not know until next year whether the recession is truly over for most Americans.

In the meantime, don’t say goodbye to Evan Bayh. He may just be gearing up to make even bigger headlines!

My political reports continue on WLNE-TV ABC6 in Providence. Check us out at www.ABC6.com.