Colwell: Indiana's Birch Bayh and the rise of the caucuses

The Iowa caucuses loom large in the selection of the Democratic nominee for president.

So large, though still nearly eight months away, that it was big news last week when an Iowa poll showed South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg in a virtual second-place tie among likely Democratic caucus participants.

The caucuses, once obscure events on the national scene, might not have become so important if it were not for the campaign in Iowa in 1976 by Sen. Birch Bayh, the Indiana Democrat who died earlier this year. That possibility is cited by Robert Blaemire, a long-time Bayh staffer, in “Birch Bayh: Making a Difference,” his new book published by Indiana University Press.

Jimmy Carter put the Iowa caucuses prominently on the presidential campaign map. No doubt about that. As a former governor of Georgia with little national name recognition and only a smidgen of support in the polls, Carter was given little chance to be the 1976 Democratic nominee. But he spent two years campaigning in Iowa, banking everything on attracting attention to the Iowa caucuses and then winning there. He accomplished both, going on to win the nomination and the presidency. And the Iowa caucuses became ever after the first important test in the presidential nomination process.

Blaemire, in South Bend last week, said Bayh, who wasn’t well prepared for an early campaign start, and some other candidates with national recognition “were suckered by Carter” into the Iowa contest.

If Bayh and others on the national scene had stayed out and concentrated instead on the traditional first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, Blaemire said, there would have been less attention paid to the caucuses and Carter’s win.

Actually, the winner in Iowa was “uncommitted,” with 37 percent. Carter, first among actual candidates, had 27.6 percent. Bayh came next at 13.1 percent.

Bayh perhaps saw it coming. In the book, Blaemire writes:

“One night in December, Birch called from Iowa, wanting to know how many people were coming to Iowa from Indiana. When given the update, he said, ‘No matter where I go in this state, that goddamned Jimmy Carter has been there four times before me.’”

A factor in all this and in Bayh faltering elsewhere and eventually dropping out was that the senator campaigned as an effective politician, one who got things done.

He cited his authorship of two amendments to the Constitution, one on presidential disability and filling a vice-presidential vacancy, the other lowering the voting age to 18. As a campaign brochure said: “Birch Bayh has written more words in the Constitution than anyone since James Madison.”

Another accomplishment was successful passage of Title IX, banning sex discrimination in schools and colleges and expanding greatly sports programs for women. Billy Jean King writes in a forward to the book: “As the father of Title IX, Birch Bayh has left a lasting impact on our country.”

While Bayh was citing these and other legislative achievements, Blaemire noted, “Carter was pretending he wasn’t a politician. And he was.” Certainly so, with two years of full-time campaigning for president before those Iowa caucuses. Voters often seem to regard politicians as more sincere if they say they aren’t politicians.

Blaemire, a Hammond native, went to work part-time in Bayh’s Senate office back in 1967, while a freshman at George Washington University, and stayed on to become a key aide to the senator. After Bayh’s defeat in 1980 after three terms in the Senate, Blaemire turned to a long career providing data for Democratic candidates and progressive organizations.

The author began the Bayh biography with video interviews with Bayh and others in 2012. He eventually worked on the book virtually full time and finished it in time for Bayh to see before his death on March 14 at age 91.