Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and Connecticut' Senator Joe Lieberman have marriage problems.  Actually, it's not their problem, but it may be ours.  As Salon's Joe Conason pointed out in a recent article,  Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman are married to women who are employed by Big Health and these ttwo men will very likely vote on a bill that is very, very important to Big Health---and their respective household incomes.  Susan Bayh has raked about two million bucks from her connections to Wellpoint and Hadassah Lieberman currently gets a paycheck from the Koman Breast Cancer charity (next time you donate at the supermarket, you should ask whether your money is going to support the Lieberman household.)

Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that as fate would have it, Bayh and Lieberman must choose whether to make life better for you and me--or make life even better for themselves, i.e. by not doing anything to hurt their own personal cash flow.  Now, Bayh is something of an unknown in this game.  He may be a stand-up guy--a statesman, really, and actually vote for the bill, public option and all.  It would be like turning his back on the cash cow (meaning Wellpoint, of course, not Mrs. Bayh.)  Lieberman, though? 

Eh, not so much.  

Joe doesn't like the public option at all and wants it to die.  In fact, he has threatened to hog the Senate microphone like that old Walter Lantz cartoon charater (you know which one) until everyone and everything in earshot does die--including the bill.  One thing about Joe--lately anyway--you know exactly which rocks he will slither from beneath.

Now, since no politician can do Lieberman like Lieberman, Senator Evan Bayh is still a wild card.   But, if ever the was a situation in which the public interests were diametrically opposed to the senators' primary  income source-this is it.   So much so, in fact, it's a surprise that some pundits and interviewers haven't asked Evan Bayh if he ever considered recusing himself from the vote because of the obvious conflict of interest.  In fact, if Bayh (okay, and Lieberman) were experts hired by lawyers in a civil lawsuit defending Big Health, the judge would likely throw out their testimony as tainted by the defendant's cash.  And yes, the same question could really be asked of characters like Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and the rest of the Blue Dog Dems.  But we know that their answer would be laced with serious umbrage that the questioner voiced concern about their integrity.   As if they had any to begin with.

But recusal isn't likely to happen, nor are apologies--so we're forced to watch Baucus and Nelson and Lincoln and Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman expound on voting their conscience--which just may turn out to be perfectly aligned with their cash source.*  

Given the momentous--and probably only--occasion to properly fix health care, it may be worthwhile for the next Bayh's interviewer to first consider unique conundrum in which the Bayhs finds themselves.  Like Nelson, Lincoln and Baucus, Senator Bayh is definitely receiving Big Health bucks (wouldn't it be great if the health insurance companies paid money to people who actually needed it?) but unlike the aforementioned characters, Bayh's receiving the money via his wife's job.  It's unique, except for Lieberman, of course, but Bayh is supposed to actually have a conscience.  Mathematically, it can be described as approximately one-half of a bank account removed from an ethics issue. 

At an absolute minimum, this situation calls for a serious media plan to debate and predict the final vote of Senator and Wellpoint largesse recepient Evan Bayh.

I can see it now:  "Bayh-Watch! Will Evan vote for the public good or vote to park another Lexus in the garage from Wellpoint?  Update at eleven!"  Okay. I don't know if the senator really drives a Lexus, but with a net worth of $10 million, I know his car has to be better than mine.

The more creative among us might even take a cue from the business of calling Big Health Paycheck-Enhanced Dems "Blue Dogs" (think Blue Cross Blue Shield Poodles)**.  So, for the Well apPointed Senator Bayh,  it should be something special. Failing that, it should be at least memorable enough to last an election cycle.

Blue Dog isn't quite right--he may not be getting money from Blue Cross.  Anyone who has heard a Ben Nelson speech knows that he has
Corn Dog" sewed up;  and Mad Dog Dems seem to be on-again, off-again appropriate for that stubborn pair of senators from Arkansas.  Of course, if Chuck Grassley switches parties, he'll have his choice of both monikers.

Green Dog suggests the involvement of money, but it doesn't quite show the problematic and perfectly legal relationship between the source of the money--and the politician's potential vote.  So, while there are only so many colors in the spectrum and only so many varieties of pooches, there's only one color that matches Evan Bayh at this point: Pink.  As in Indiana's Pink Dog Democrat.

Wait, I know what you're thinking---I suggested pink because, hey,  girls and women really like pink and Mrs. Bayh is bringing in all that conscience-wringing, integrity-threatening, potentially vote-altering money, right?  And you might even think it's because of that  study in 2007 by Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling that tested the common belief that girls have an innate preference for pink (Current Biology, vol 17, p R623)--you know, like a pink girly-circuit or something.

But you'd be wrong.  Evan Bayh is the perfect Pink Dog Dem because of the source of much of his household money--and thus his bank-account rattling dilemma--is from from the biggest of Big Health behemoths--Wellpoint, Inc.   And Wellpoint has a  tasteful little pink flag as its logo.***  It flutters serenely on all it's correspondence--it's on the oversize pay stubs sent to Mrs. Bayh as well as on those crisp little one-page letters declining coverage to unfortunate shlubs like you and the guy in the next cubicle.

In fact, corporations being what they are, I'm certain that somewhere in the Wellpoint organization there is someone in authority who actually wears a pink power suit.  Susan Bayh may not wear one, but with two million dollars she could certainly afford one--and maybe even buy one for her husband as well.  The question is, of course, can she--and her employer--buy the Pink Dog's vote?  

Stay tuned.

*The great Sinclair Lewis quote, of course, is something like: “It is difficult for a man to understand something when his wife's million-dollar salary depends on him not understanding it." 

**Yes, yes, I know the term Blue Dog wasn't originally about Blue Cross-Blue Shield, but it is now.

***The inherently argumentative and perpetually unhappy among you will likely point out that the Wellpoint logo is not pink at all, but rather the color of oxygen-depleted venous blood as it leaves the bottom of the gall bladder, spleen or appendix.  Well okay, then.   Dark pink.