By Bayh?

Donald Lambro:

If you want more evidence of how deep Democratic losses may be in the fall midterm elections, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh's suddenly shaky bid for a third term is Exhibit A.

A few months ago, Mr. Bayh was considered a shoo-in for re-election in the Hoosier state. Now election handicappers have moved him from "safe" to endangered.

Within hours of former Sen. Dan Coats' announcement Wednesday that he is considering challenging Mr. Bayh, the dynamics of the race changed dramatically. The conservative Republican's "likely entry into the Indiana Senate race puts another seat into play," said election forecaster Stuart Rothenberg. "Move from Currently Safe to Narrow Advantage for the Incumbent Party," he wrote .

However, the senator's "narrow advantage" may be precarious, according to recent polls that show growing disapproval of the two-term senator, who once had presidential ambitions.

Despite Mr. Bayh's once carefully cultivated image as a party moderate, he has lurched left under the rhetorical spell of the Obama presidency and the pressures of the Senate's liberal Democratic caucus.

He voted for the $2.5 trillion Obamacare bill despite strong opposition back home, where polls showed 60 percent opposition. He backed President Obama's $800-billion-plus stimulus bill, which has failed to create the 3.5 million jobs Mr. Obama promised. He supported Mr. Obama's unpopular move to remove terrorist prisoners from Guantanamo Bay and try them in civilian courts.

This was not the sensible, moderate Evan Bayh who once chaired the centrist-leaning Democratic Leadership Council that declared war on the liberal wing of his party. He broke with his state's right-of-center political traditions, and Indiana voters are breaking away from him.

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Anyone who supported the unpopular Democrat health care take over bill is in trouble no matter how "safe" they were thought to be. Bayh started lurching left when he opposed the surge in Iraq. Having gotten that wrong he compounded the error by backing unpopular Obama agenda items.