Not really. There’s 99 other guys just like him in the Senate. Check out Muckety for his associations. It’s the typical mosh pit of banking, defense, pharmaceutical, and special interest groups that fetters every other senator. Check out some of the guys he’s immediately connected to and who they’re one jump away from. Like other senators, he’s just a legal partnership away from a truckload of special interests. A brief search turned up Roche and JP Morgan among the clients of a firm he has a direct relationship with.

So, no, he’s not a real loss. The next senator from Indiana, be he Demican or Republocrat, will look a lot like Bayh: someone with a much closer relationship with the board of directors of JP Morgan than I’ll ever have. Still, the Muckety link is nice. Check out your favorite Congressperson or Senator with it!