Bayh in NH

Thanks to Ryan at AAP for keeping us updated on the Senator's trip...

So far he's talked about his vote on the estate tax:

Bayh said that when the federal budget was in surplus, he voted to eliminate the death tax “because it does hit small businesses and farmers. People have to pay a lot to take out insurance policies so that the business can stay in the family.”

Bayh said the Bush administration or its successor must develop “a plan to restore our nation’s finances so we can make the investments we need and begin to reform the tax code in ways that will make it better, like repealing the death tax.”

Zarqawi:

Bayh called the death of Iraqi terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “a step in the right direction” in the war on terrorism, but said, “He’s only one bad person.”

He said the U.S. must eliminate Zarqawi’s entire network in Iraq, but “even then, al-Qaida in Iraq is only a small part of the problem.”

Future of the US in Iraq:

Bayh said he fears that the United States “may still be there in force” when the next President takes office in 2009.

“We have to do better than that,” he said, by pressuring feuding Iraqi factions to reconcile and unify.

“If (feuding Iraqi factions) don’t want to live in the same country together, there’s nothing we can do about that,” he said.’

He said the United States must “focus like a laser on the security situation so that they can provide for their own, so that we don’t have to,” he said.

“We need to leave Iraq,” he said. “We need to leave it in a way that makes it as stable as we possibly can.”

And NH's role in the primary process:

Bayh was the first potential Presidential candidate to clearly oppose a Democratic National Committee move to place additional caucuses between Iowa’s leadoff caucus and the New Hampshire primary in 2008. The proposal is now being weighed by the DNC’s rules committee.

“I don’t have a representative on that committee,” Bayh said. “Obviously, I can share my opinion with them. I have done that, and I’m willing to do that again.

He said if the proposal goes before the full DNC, he will also “share my opinion” with Indiana’s DNC members, and, “hopefully they will take it into account in terms of how they are going to vote.”

John DiStaso from the Union Leader is providing great coverage.