Republicans Would Elect that Indicted Ham Sandwich in Indiana Right Now

WIBC Morning and Midday host Tony Katz blasted former Democratic nominee for Governor, Jennifer McCormick for being out of touch with local issues on one of his shows. He claimed that she is out of touch with Indiana issues and cares more about things like Project 2025 links than what goes on here in the state. 

This comes after McCormick called out Timothy Wesco's ridiculous bill that could conceivably lock someone in a marriage if they have children and cannot produce a witness to testify to the "irretrievable breakdown of the marriage" among other things. It's House Bill 1684 if you're interested. McCormick linked that to parts of Project 2025.

That made Tony Katz apoplectic...as he often is when not smoking a stogie (and don't try to take away his stogies). Katz said, "This is why you lost. You’re uninspiring as as the kids would say, you’re boring. Most importantly, you are interested in national progressive claptrap and not being focused on Hoosiers."

We can talk about McCormick as a candidate. I think she ran a pretty darn good campaign against Micah Beckwi...er...Mike Braun for Governor, but Indiana, specifically the Indiana GOP, has a darn good track record of electing its nominees to state office. That includes a recent run of some real humdingers! Richard Mourdock, Charlie White, Todd Rokita, Diego Morales, Curtis Hill, Micah Beckwith...should I go on? 

It took a "Mourdock Moment" to help elect Joe Donnelly to the U.S. Senate in 2012, and I'm not even sure that would matter anymore in today's political climate. Had Richard Mourdock said that a woman who conceived a child as a result of a sexual assault was something "God  intended" in 2024, he might be a U.S. Senator. I think it certainly sounds like something that might come out of Micah Beckwith's mouth.

Jennifer McCormick didn't lose because she was wrong on the issues. Jennifer McCormick lost because, unlike the previous time she ran and won statewide office, she wasn't a Republican. That's the bottom line. Indiana Republicans would elect a ham sandwich if it ran on a statewide ticket even if that ham sandwich was the proverbial one that was indicted by a grand jury.

That's just where we are right now in Indiana politics.

Please, Not Again

I am hearing rumblings that Joe Donnelly wants to be your Senator again. I plead with the Indiana Democratic Party not to do this again.

Yeah, I know that Joe once won a statewide race against a truly off-kilter Republican who wrote his own ending weeks before the General Election, but Joe Donnelly won't beat Todd Young or Mike Braun or whoever he runs against next for whatever statewide office he wants. He doesn't have a shot. He connected himself with Donald Trump in 2018. That's not what a Democrat does.

In my view, the 2022 election cycle for U.S. Senate is an uphill battle. Running the same strategy Democrats have run in almost every U.S. Senate in my adult life is not going to work in 2022 or 2024. You won't beat Republican Todd Young by being slightly less Republican. You won't beat Republican Mike Braun by calling out his Trumpiness...when you touted your own Trumpiness in 2018.

To me, the wiser strategy is to give us a candidate who brings something more to the table. More Democrat. Yeah, let's run and support someone who espouses Democratic Party values which consistently poll in the positive. I'm not talking about those fake wedge issues that Republicans try to throw over our necks like albatrosses. I'm talking about those bread and butter issues that carried Democrats in Georgia across the finish line in that Senate race. 

If Georgia can have two Democrats in the Senate...if Arizona can have one Democrat and one who ran as a Democrat in the Senate, Indiana can. Don't tell me we have to keep running Evan Bayh clones or Joe Donnelly each time. There was a time when Diet Republican worked as a strategy here. My mom voted for Evan Bayh. She wouldn't vote for Democrats much, but she could vote for Bayh because he was just a little left of Richard Lugar. 

To win in 2022 or 2024, it's going to take every darn Democrat in the state to get out plus a lot of those Republicans who voted for Joe Biden because they were tired of Donald Trump and who believe things like the environment are important. That healthcare needs to be fixed. That guns should be legal but controlled more. That immigration is essential to our country's future. That democracy is worth saving. That Joe Biden won the 2020 election...and much more.

Laying down with the Republicans to try to pull over votes rather than making a case that our ideas are better is, in my view, a losing strategy. Even if the strategy of making your case loses, you win in the end because you were advancing our party's goals. Every small step makes that difference.

That's just my opinion. Joe Donnelly's better than Todd Young or Mike Braun, but I just fear getting in this never ending cycle of a strategy that doesn't work and won't work again.

Vote Holcomb Out: Time for a Doctor to Lead COVID Response, Vote Woody Myers

Dr. Woody Myers

Eric Holcomb deserves to lose this race for Governor, but the Indiana Democratic Party is again in no position to help him do it.

The Governor has watched while Indiana's COVID numbers and hospitalization numbers skyrocket for a third time. All the while, he meekly tells people to wear a mask and now has hidden himself away from the media at the COVID briefings each week. Meanwhile, the state is poised to hit 2,000 daily cases sometime in the next few days with a rising positivity rate.

As far as candidates go, you have the Libertarian, Donald Rainwater. Rainwater's supporters were absolutely giddy over an outlying poll showing him in hailing distance of the Governor. More recent polls show Rainwater with more support than normal for a Libertarian, but Holcomb with a wide lead in the race.

The Democrats, meanwhile, are running a medical doctor in Woody Myers. Dr. Myers has come out with reasoned, strong and realistic plans on many topics...not just the Coronavirus. The Indiana Democratic Party is, however, providing little support instead putting their efforts behind electing Jonathan Weinzapfel as Attorney General. 

So, while Woody continues to fight to find support, he's also fighting the battle of name recognition. 

Holcomb looks to be in the driver's seat here a couple of weeks out, but we still have the Gubernatorial Debates coming up on October 22 and 27. Barring some major collapse a la Richard Mourdock's disastrous performance in the 2012 Senatorial Debate, Holcomb probably is the favorite to breeze into a second term.

Still, he doesn't deserve it. He's thrown his initial caution on COVID to the business of politics and has put his own electoral fortunes over the things necessary to control this virus. Governor Holcomb leaves most major decisions to local communities because he clearly is more happy talking about sunshine and rainbows in his "One Indiana" ads than what's truly going on here. Holcomb has taken what was a strong start in his pandemic response and is simply watching while COVID comes back for a third bite at the Hoosier apple.

Rainwater won't take the steps needed to curb this virus. This is why he's received a lot of support from angry Holcomb voters. He's capitalized on those anti-maskers who are mad at Holcomb's ridiculously lax mask policies for the State of Indiana. 

There's only one candidate in the race for Governor who's willing to do something about this pandemic. That's Woody Myers. For that reason, among many others, a vote for Myers is the wise and prudent move. Holcomb must be voted out.

Voting, Running for Office Each Can Impose Term Limits

Here's today's hot take.

Congressional term limits are overrated.

That's right, I said it. Term limits are things that people often push as a way to change the metaphorical kitty litter in Congress, but I say that the people have that power.

First of all, Congressional term limits can toss perfectly good representatives. Just because someone has been in their job for a long time, it doesn't mean that they deserve to be removed by an arbitrary term limit. If a Representative or a Senator is serving his or her constituency and they keep sending him or her back, that's the electoral will of the people.

Secondly, the ability to term limit a politician is cooked into the stew. It's called voting. As we've recently seen in Iowa where racist Steve King was tossed from office, a Senator or Congressperson can become so problematic that his constituents make the decision to push him out. Eliot Engel, a powerful Democrat in the House, was just defeated in the primary in New York by educator Jamaal Brown. If it matters enough to the constituents to remove someone's power, the voters do it.

Finally,  I would just say that if you're so up in arms that people have been around for too long in office, and you wan them out then run against them in the primary. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez did. Brown did. Heck, even Richard Mourdock did here in Indiana in 2012. Take your message to the voters. It's hard work, but there's nothing more powerful than beating an incumbent.

Granted, it's hard to beat an incumbent. They have influence, money and the power of the bully pulpit. Those are all things that need to be reformed. Ranked choice voting would help. Campaign finance reform would help, but an arbitrary number of years or terms someone can serve in Congress is not helpful, in my opinion.

I do believe in term limits for executive offices. Executives are singular individuals, and the longer they are in power the more they become drunk by it. Granted, this same argument can be used against the powerful Senators and Congresspeople, but one voice there is simply one voice. One voice as the President carries significantly more weight.

I know some will disagree with me, and that's fine. If term limits pass, I'm ok with it. I just think that term limits for the U.S. House and Senate don't need to be implemented because the mechanism exists to fix the problem of people hanging around the Capitol Building for too long.

Run for Office. Vote.

In Memoriam: Richard G. Lugar (1932-2019)

For the second time this year, Indiana mourns the loss of a transformational political figure.

Richard Lugar has died, and I doubt we will never see another man like him in Indiana politics.

For me, it seems like he's always been here. I remember watching his career since I was a child. He was the Mayor of Indianapolis when I was born, and he served on the Senate for most of my adult life.

His accomplishments as Mayor paved the way for the city we know today. He had the vision of Indianapolis as a major player in the Midwest, and he put the chess pieces in place for that to happen. When he became a U.S. Senator, he brought his Hoosier sensibilities to the Upper Chamber of the U.S. Congress, and he served with a record of national and global distinction.

While a reliable vote for the GOP, Lugar was not afraid to put his state and country ahead of his party, and he did that without apology on occasion.

Unlike many before him and after him, Senator Lugar did not gain his power by corruption or through scandal. When you look back at his record, the only whiff of a scandal was that he chose to maintain an address in Indianapolis while living near Washington, D.C. rather than reside in Indianapolis or somewhere in Indiana full time. The Constitution says that one only needs to be an inhabitant of the state they serve, and it was ruled that, while he would spend time in hotels when he was back in the state, maintaining the address was enough to satisfy the Constitution. I always thought it was a silly scandal because Lugar served his constituents so well.

In fact, it was because Senator Lugar did the work that he earned his power. His constituent services were second-to-none. The many times I wrote him on issues, I always received back a personalized letter that sounded as if the Senator executed it on his own computer. He would provide concrete reasons for his positions and would promise to take my views into advisement. They weren't partisan missives written in generality.

He conducted himself in the same way in the international sphere. Few Senators were as respected at home or abroad as Lugar. He was above party and always pro-country. From IPS School Board Member to even his work post-Senate, Senator Lugar was trying to help the city, the state, and the world be a better place.

When I got into politics and then began to write this blog, he became someone I wanted to meet. It always seemed that I was a step or two behind when trying to accomplish this goal. Finally, I attended an event put on by the Decatur Township Education Foundation in honor of the school system naming the site of the Blue and Gold Academy after Lugar.

He spoke off the top of his head about his diplomatic work. He talked about helping to secure loose nukes in the former Soviet states in Europe and Asia. He also even talked about the trip with then-Senator Barack Obama where they were briefly detained in Russia on a diplomatic trip. After the speech, Senator Lugar greeted everyone who waited for him. He took every picture and signed every autograph. I shook his hand and told him how much I admired him even though I was on the opposite side of the aisle. He smiled and thanked me. I then watched as his staffers tried to pull him away from the others, but he ended up being nearly the last person in the room. He only left when no one else wanted to meet him. That's an enduring image I'll have of the Senator.

In retrospect, it might have been that statesmanship that cost him his seat in the Senate. Richard Mourdock used that diplomatic fact-finding trip Senator Lugar took with then Senator Barack Obama that I referenced earlier as a rallying cry to knock off Lugar. He mocked him as "Obama's favorite Senator" and decried bipartisanship. When Senator Lugar had to say goodbye to the Senate, his farewell speech was memorable.

Lugar's Farewell Speech

So, as we again mourn the death of one of the greatest Indiana politicians, we must also mourn the death of one of the greatest Hoosiers. Like Birch Bayh who passed just weeks ago, individuals like Richard Lugar come along very rarely, and we were all better for having lived in his time. He enriched our world and our society.