POLITICS: Exit Bayh

• Share

It began, some said, more as a campaign for the vice-presidency than as a quest for the highest office in the land. When it ended last week beneath the crystal chandeliers of the cavernous Senate Caucus Room, the most that could be said for the brief, improbable presidential odyssey of Birch Bayh was that it had come close to being second best. As one of the Indiana Senator's aides put it: "In some of the polls, we were everybody's second choice."

Bayh cut short his undeclared candidacy not because of his disastrously low standing in the polls—which had lately not even bothered to list him —but because of a sudden personal blow. His wife Marvella, a vivacious blonde of 38, had just undergone "critical" surgery for cancer of the breast. "At a time when our nation so desperately needs to reorder its priorities," said Bayh, swallowing deeply, "it is time for me to reorder my own priorities. I must put first things first. My wife Marvella and her well-being and rapid recovery are more important to me than seeking the nomination."

Bayh did not take his leave of the presidential campaign scene without a farewell review of the nation's ills—the rot of Viet Nam, the fact of 5,000,000 unemployed Americans. The room was still as he read his ten-paragraph withdrawal statement beneath television lights. Half a dozen of Bayh's Democratic Senate colleagues were on hand —Hawaii's Daniel Inouye, Iowa's Harold Hughes, Minnesota's Walter Mondale, Missouri's Stuart Symington, Mississippi's John Stennis and Wisconsin's Gaylord Nelson. None of Bayh's erstwhile rivals for the presidential nomination appeared, however.

Only a week before Bayh's sudden announcement, Marvella had joined the wives of other Democratic aspirants in a bit of singing and spoofing for a party skit at a capital hotel. The following day, she was admitted to Washington's Columbia Hospital for Women to have a biopsy for possible cancer. The results were positive. In the next two days, surgeons removed one of her breasts. In the corridor outside Marvella's hospital room, Bayh gathered his top political aides and told them he was quitting. They did not protest.

Delayed Paychecks. Nor was there reason to. Even before the tragic turn of events, Bayh's high-financed, super-energy campaign was falling apart. The money that had once been provided in such abundance by financiers like Gilbert Flexi-Van Corp. Chairman Milton Gilbert and Spartans Industries Chairman Charles Bassine had lately slowed to a trickle. Twice during the summer, Bayh was forced to delay paychecks for his staff. The impressive organization that had been the envy of his rivals was beginning to unravel. Around Washington during the past several weeks, rumors had been circulating that the Bayh campaign would not make it to the primaries. As it happened, few sensed more acutely how badly things were going than Marvella Bayh, who had been doubtful about her husband's running in the first place.