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SEN. EVAN BAYH, D-IND.: There is just too much brain-dead partisanship, tactically maneuvering for short term political advantage rather than focusing on the greater good, and also just strident ideology.

The extremes of both parties have to be willing to accept compromises from time to time to make some progress because some progress for the American people is better than nothing. And all too often recently we have been getting nothing.

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BAIER: Democratic Senator Evan Bayh from Indiana one day after announcing he will not seek reelection in 2010, talking about his decision-making process.

In the meantime Democrats were scrambling. This little known Democrat from Bloomington, Indiana, Tamyra D'Ippolito, she needed 4,500 signatures to get on Indiana's Democratic primary ballot. She said she had them. She said she had all the signatures, 500 in each Indiana district. It turns out at last count, before this show, she had 112.

So, it will not be anyone on that ballot. And the Democrats in Indiana will pick in a convention in June the nominee. We're back with the panel. A.B., it was an interesting political development there. What about the Democrats scrambling in Indiana?

STODDARD: Well, obviously the announcement by Senator Bayh was a real shocker, especially the timing of it. I think Democrats in Indiana feel very burned by the fact that he did it right before the primary filing date. I think they felt that was a little bit selfish.

He has been feeling he has been lamenting the changes in the institution for a while, gave no indication when asked to reassure the leadership to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he would definitely run for reelection, that was hint. But he did this right before the filing deadline, leaving the party in Indiana grasping to find somebody.

They don't have a bench. They will end up having people interested and they will appoint someone. But the way that it happened was unfortunate for the Democratic Party in Indiana.

That said, I don't think that they can keep the seat anyway. I think it's going to go Republican along with several other seats in this fall's elections.

But even looking at how it would affect Democrats in the House, if you have Congressman Hill or Congressman Ellsworth, Brad Ellsworth, excuse, me from Indiana deciding to take a look at that and making a run to replace Evan Bayh, you still open up these very recently Republican either, you know, recently picked up seats by the Democrats that will go right back into Republican hands.

So it poses problems for the Democrats in either chamber.

BAIER: Steve?

HAYES: I think if you look at the way Indiana plays out. Indiana is a red state. It's been a red state. They have elected Democrats, but it's basically a conservative state.

I would be shocked with either Ellsworth or Barron Hill thought it was in their interest to get in this race anyway. If you take a step back, Ellsworth is the kind of candidate that can win in Indiana because he's pro gun, pro life, et cetera.

But this is going to be a year where small government conservatives win and win big. And what we have seen in the analysis of the Bayh departure, the Bayh retirement, is everybody on the networks talking about anti-incumbent mood.

It's not anti-incumbent mood, or it's only a partially anti-incumbent mood. What we are seeing is ideological movement. You are seeing that manifested in the tea party movement. But you are seeing conservatives, small-government types, come out and be energized and invigorated in a way that they haven't probably since 1994.

BAIER: What about that, Jonah, the 30,000 foot look at the Bayh decision and what it means for politics overall. Look at somebody like Barbara Boxer in California facing a race that that she is only four points up in the latest poll. It's changed dramatically in just a matter of months.

GOLDBERG: Yes. And I think that's in some ways one of the most devastating things about Bayh's decision is it casts in stone this narrative that was already hardening that the country is fed up with Washington, that the country has gone on the wrong track. Obama messed up his first year. The Democrats have messed up their chance.

And that was, you know, Bayh's parting shot at Reid and the process and the Congress generally reinforced all of that in a way that I don't think now can be rewritten. And that is the narrative that we will be going into all the way into the midterm election.

BAIER: And is there a narrative here A.B. that conservative Democrats are really in trouble? I mean, they are really a breed that's becoming extinct. It was the other way around just a few months ago. Moderate Republicans were said to be the ones that were leaving in droves.

STODDARD: I think both parties are becoming very polarized and they are purifying, and I think that's unfortunate for everybody. I think it's unfortunate for Republicans who will be back in power soon to lose someone like Evan Bayh who they would need to work with across the aisle.

I think it's unfortunate for Democrats that they don't have a big test. And I think it's - I think it's bad for the taxpayers that people like Evan Bayh and Patrick Kennedy or whoever, members on both sides of the aisle actually this year who are leaving because they believe that the place is broken down. It's paralyzed by partisanship.

It's under a stranglehold of big industry. You have to fund raise the day you get there. There is no incentive to work with the other side. There is no coming together to legislate on anything big.

It's hard for these guys to imagine who are leaving to ever seeing anything big happening again in the professional lifetimes in the Congress, and I think that's bad for everybody.

HAYES: But it's a lot more than that. It's that, but it's a lot more than that. And this is what I think people are generally missing in the mainstream media. This is ideological movement. Evan Bayh didn't leave only because things are broken. He left because he is hung out to dry by the Obama agenda.

The Obama that agenda is a big government agenda, and you are seeing people more and more self-identify as conservatives, even people who are not saying to pollsters yes I'm a Republican. They are saying I'm an independent, but I'm a conservative.

BAIER: And Jonah, quickly, the White House communication answer is to sharpen the message and to get out the specific message of these policies, saying it's just the way they have communicated that's not caught on.

GOLDBERG: It's the ring the cow bell even louder the same way they have for the last year. And I don't think - I think that is a real sign that they are in a bunker and they are suffering from group think and they are blaming all of their problems on this messaging and marketing and buzz phrase stuff and not on the fact that they have gotten the policies wrong from the get-go.