It’s looking like former House Speaker John Gregg and former state representative Dave Crooks are going to re-enter the Indiana political ring. Gregg is forming an exploratory committee for a run for Governor and Crooks is considering a run for the Eighth Congressional District.
Both of those guys are good people and good candidates. Indiana would be well-served by either of them. I’m biased because I got to watch both of them work up close when I was working for the General Assembly. Rep. Crooks was a member of the House Commerce Committee when I was staffing it, always seemed to be diligent in considering legislation, and was super nice to me when I had to talk to him about something. My personal interaction with John Gregg was much more limited, but he was just fun to listen to over the in-house speakers of floor activity we had playing in our offices.
I think both of them will be good campaigners. Dave is a radio personality, and John’s down-home style of humor has to play better than Jill Long Thompson’s “I have a PhD” approach.
But, it’s early days, so we’ll just have to watch and see.
To add to the story a bit, Sam Locke, who ran for State Auditor, is exploring a run for Congress in the 9th District. There is also a Draft Vi Simpson for Governor movement on Facebook. And LOTS of rumors about who runs for Congress if the new maps are adopted.
In the Fifth District, where I live, it looks to be MUCH less Republican-friendly. But in sort of a good news thing for Dan (yuck!) Burton, his main challenger in the Republican 2010 primary, Luke Messer, would no longer be in the 5th. But rumors are also flying about about Democratic challengers to Burton, as the new district is said to have gone 46% for Obama in 2008.
It’s not good to use Obama’s numbers as a baseline. He ran ahead of the baseline. I highly doubt when you look at true baseline numbers the 5th district is at all competitive.
For that matter, Burton runs behind his party’s baseline. The new 5th will still be a pretty safe Republican district. The party in control of the map-making wasn’t about to gerrymander themselves out of a Congressional seat.
I like Dave Crooks. I’ve had the opportunity to work with him on the Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission and enjoyed discussions with him very much. The radio experience you cite, Doug, along with his prior campaigning and legislative experience, should make him a formidable candidate- and a good one.
I second what Paul said. There are plenty of Republican towns in Indiana that voted for Obama. That election was an outlier.
Perhaps the 2010 election was as well, on the other hand. Indiana is not as Republican as it was in November 2010, and not nearly as Democrat as it was in November of 2008.
Does that mean that the D’s have a chance for governor? Just looking at the redistricting maps for Congress, House, and Senate, it seems like a very Republican state to me. But perhaps that overstates Republican strength by quite a bit.
I also second what Mike said. The Republicans crammed the D’s into two districts, and made the rest slightly more Republican.
Some other things to consider:
1) Is it a coincidence that voter ID requirements have coincided with a Republican surge? Could it be that there is less voter fraud on behalf of Democrats?
2) There has been massive population loss in Democrat areas. The fastest growing areas are deeply red.
3) I think that vote centers and the abandonment of precinct voting will be good for Republicans. Like Voter ID, it suppresses Democrat vote schenanigans.
The bottom line is that 2008 will be 4 years ago in 2012. ;)