page_title: Evan Bayh 2008 presidential campaign
section_title: 2006
hierarchical_section_title: Evan Bayh 2008 presidential campaign / On the campaign trail / 2006
caption_attribution_description: English: Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana talks with Soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division stationed in Kirkuk, Iraq.
context_page_description: The 2008 presidential campaign of Evan Bayh, Democratic Senator and 46th Governor of Indiana, began shortly after the 2004 presidential election.
  Although he was frequently mentioned as a possible challenger to frontrunner Hillary Clinton due his status as a Senator from a traditionally Red State that could appeal to moderates in a general election, Bayh stopped short of a full-fledged candidacy, withdrawing from the race in December 2006 despite accumulating approximately $10.4 million for the campaign. His withdrawal was tied to his public image, which characterized the candidate as "dependable" but "dull".
  Bayh spent a considerable amount of time campaigning throughout the early primary states for most of 2005 and 2006. The staff from his All America Political Action Committee worked as his campaign team.
  Two weeks prior to his withdrawal, Bayh filed his organization with the Federal Elections Commission as an exploratory committee, under the header Friends of Evan Bayh. Following his exit from the race, Bayh endorsed and campaigned for Hillary Clinton for president, switching his support to Democratic nominee Barack Obama following Clinton's withdrawal.
context_section_description: As 2006 began, Bayh had $9.5 million on hand, $3.1 million of which he raised the previous year. A large portion of his time in the first month was spent positioning himself. He took a hard-line against the government of Iran, referring to leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as having a "radical, almost delusional nature," and then criticized the Bush administration for "ignoring" the situation, stating that "diplomacy, economic sanctions, [and] other means" needed to be used. For balance, just as he had in the previous year, Bayh voted against the appointment of a George W. Bush Supreme Court nominee when he cast his "no" vote for Samuel Alito. However, his fellow potential Democratic presidential peers, voted in a similar fashion. Late in January, Bayh gained the position as speaker at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in North Carolina for the upcoming April. The gain came as a loss for North Carolinian John Edwards, who also was considered a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination. A Bayh spokesman, commented that the Senator was chosen because he "has a lot of ideas about how to fix Washington and make America better". Prior to the event, in the beginning of February, Bayh made an appearance at the Congressional Black Caucus political action committee, spoke to the United Auto Workers conference, and made a trip back to Iowa for a plethora of events during the February 11–13 weekend. By the end of the month and into March, Bayh criticized the Bush administration from the right, attempting to appeal to all segments of the political spectrum by speaking out against the plan to sell American ports to United Arab Emirates companies.
  March for Bayh began with reports that the potential candidate was one of the most conservative Democrats of the Senate. However, it was later revealed that he was the 19th most conservative Democrat during the 109th Congress, demonstrating a sharp trend to the left during his run. This came as the Senator made the keynote speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where according to a campaign aide, he "la[id] out a tough and smart approach to deal with Iran and Hamas". While on a campaign stop in Manchester late in March, Bayh revealed to a New Hampshire crowd that he supported the continuation of the New Hampshire Primary as the first in the nation and that he would "do everything" he could "to keep it that way".
  Bayh headlined the Jefferson-Jackson dinner for Michigan in the first week of April, and made rounds on political talk shows throughout the month. He weighed in on the immigration debate, stating that the government should come up with a solution "without rewarding [and] violating the law, to bring [illegal immigrants] out of the shadows" and to "impose fines, [perform] criminal background checks" while making sure the immigrants "pay back taxes [and] learn English." He elaborated that it was in America's "national security interest" to give the immigrants "some kind of regular status here." Later in the month, he traveled to North Carolina to deliver the keynote address at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, just as he planned earlier in the year.
  Bayh continued campaigning in Iowa during May, making appearances in Osceola, Council Bluffs, and Sioux City. But polls of Iowa in June showed that the candidate had only single digit support. In an attempt to improve his standing on the unpopular war in Iraq, Bayh along with many of his fellow potential Democratic presidential candidates, voted for a resolution that would set July 2007 as the deadline to remove American forces from the nation. At the end of the month, Bayh traveled to Slidell, Louisiana to view the damage brought about by Hurricane Katrina the previous year. Stating that he "just want[ed] to help," Bayh became the first member of Congress outside of Louisiana to visit the site. On a larger scale, Bayh commented on the rebuilding of the area, conveying that it "is a test of America".
  While campaigning in Des Moines during the first week of July, Bayh commented that he would campaign for embattled Senator Joe Lieberm
caption: Bayh during a January 2006 trip to Iraq
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D2H", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2006:01:13 10:47:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "220", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "950", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4232", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "6", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:01:08 11:46:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:01:08 11:46:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF SubSecTime": "32", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "32", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2464", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1632", "EXIF RelatedSoundFile": "", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "52", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Soft", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}