Kern Appears to Possibly Swing Marion County Clerk's Race

Bob Kern
Photo: Hoosier Enquirer

For the second time in his long political career, Bob Kern has sent some shockwaves through Central Indiana politics. 

This time, he's not here to see it.

Back in 1998, Kern defeated the Democratic Party-backed candidate and a handful of others in the May Primary to take on Dan Burton in the General Election. Kern lost that race with Burton claiming 72 percent of the vote to Kern's 17 percent. Libertarian Joe Hauptmann came in with 11 percent of the vote. 

Since then, Kern's run for a wide variety of offices including his choice this year, Marion County Clerk. Unfortunately, Kern had a stroke and passed in early April. It was too late to remove his name from the ballot.

It appears that, from the grave, Bob Kern certainly played a factor in the Marion County Clerk's race. It appears that former Marion County Democratic Party Chair, former Marion County Recorder and the incumbent Marion County Clerk, Kate Sweeney Bell just got past attorney Karla Lopez-Owens.

As I write this blog post at 10:30 pm. Lopez-Owens trails Sweeney Bell by 2,088 votes with 97 percent of the vote in. Kern has 4,564 votes. If just half of the people who voted for him voted for Lopez-Owens, the race would have flipped. 

Of course, there are still votes to count and things could change, but it does appear that Bob Kern swung a race from the Great Beyond. Ain't politics grand? 

Perhaps Kate Sweeney Bell should pour one out for Bob tonight.