Ross Perot was an outsider. So was Bill Clinton of Arkansas. George W. Bush of Texas campaigned to change the tone in Washington.
Why? Because, despite the utter silliness of one person promising to change a city's political culture, polls told them that's what voters said they wanted to hear. Just about every potential Republican candidate for 2012, especially Sarah Palin, is also running as not-from-there.
In fact, the current coatless Oval Office guy did the same thing, promising change to believe in, even though a) he was employed there, and b) the real change he believed in was that he become the ringmaster of the very same civic circus.
With a single phone call Obama could have had centrist, bipartisan and sometimes independent Bayh on his 2008 ticket.
Instead, Obama went with that Amtrak-riding political force from powerful Delaware, who's a gaffe-prone gabber -- but obedient. "
