A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Indiana House

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I haven’t been able to get good statewide results for Indiana House races. But I’ve seen a few things on the close one.

It looks like in my neck of the woods Democrat Joe Micon will beat repeat challenger Connie Basham.

It looks like Republican Jackie Walorski will hang on to her seat against challenger Robert Kovach.

It looks like Democrat Nancy Dembowski will knock off incumbent Republican Steve Heim who might become a DST/Toll Road casualty. I really respected Rep. Heim’s willingness to blog about what was going on at the General Assembly. That seems like a great tool for letting constituents understand what’s going on day-to-day at the legislature.

Incumbent Troy “I’ll Never Vote for It” Woodruff looks to be having trouble against Kreg Battles.

Update Mary Beth Schneider has a story for the Indianapolis Star suggesting that the Democrats are close to winning control of the Indiana House of Representatives. She says it looks like the Democrats were in danger of losing just one incumbent, Ed Mahern to Republican Jonathon Elrod. Meanwhile, the Republicans looked to lose Steve Heim to Nancy Dembowski; John Smith to Ron Herrell; Billy Bright to David Cheatham; and Troy Woodruff was having trouble with Kreg Battles.

The Democrats need to net 3 seats to take control.

Update 2 District 64 – currently represented by Troy Woodruff goes into Knox, Pike, Daviess, and Gibson counties. I can’t find any results for Gibson County yet. The other three counties have Battles leading 6,103 votes to Woodruff’s 4,238 votes. And, Gibson County broke in favor of the Democratic incumbent John Frenz in 2004 when Woodruff beat Frenz — so Gibson County shouldn’t be a stronghold. However, according to the 2004 results, Gibson County seems to cast about as many votes as the other districts combined, so Woodruff’s defeat probably can’t be taken as a given just yet.

IN-09: Baron Hill wins rubber match against Sodrel

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The Indy Star has a headline up saying that Hill has won in Indiana’s 9th District in his re-rematch against Sodrel. I won’t bother linking to it at the moment since the text doesn’t match the headline and they keep shifting text. CBS offered a teaser with the same information. I guess there is some allegation of voter fraud on the part of the Democrats in Monroe County that I suppose could put things on hold for a bit if the margins are too close.

IN-02: Joe Donnelly Wins

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CNN is now projecting that Joe Donnelly will beat Chris Chocola in Indiana’s Second District. And now I see that the South Bend Tribune is reporting that Chris Chocola has conceded. Congratulations Joe. (And, if you’re reading, congratulations Dustin — thanks for dropping by with information on the Donnelly campaign throughout election season.)

IN-08: Ellsworth defeats Hostettler

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Looks like John Hostettler used up his 9 lives already. It’s being projected that he will go down to defeat to Brad Ellsworth in the bloody eighth. I respected him for voting against the war in Iraq and generally voting his conscience. But Hostettler was far too radical with some of his views for my tastes. For example he characterized the Democrats as “demonizing and denigrating Christians.” He was against “divorce on demand.” In an effort to establish fully human life begins at conception, he proposed giving people a child tax credit if they had a miscarriage. And, he was in favor of defunding the U.S. Marshal’s Office in order to prevent them from enforcing judicial orders with which he disagreed.

I think Brad Ellsworth is conservative enough to represent the vast majority of people in the 8th District. But he’s not going to be a wingnut about it.

Election Day

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Don’t forget to vote. Also, if you see anything interesting or noteworthy at the polls and are so inclined, please feel free to share it here.

Update: I forgot to add the reminder to bring your state or federally issued photo identification which is required before you can exercise your right to vote. Even if you can prove who you are by other means, it doesn’t count. State or federally issued photo identification only.

Update 2: “Voting machines were not working in at least half of Marion County’s precincts after polls opened this morning because election workers forgot how to start the machines.” (Advance Indiana citing the Indianapolis Star.)

Update 3: An anonymous commenter at Taking Down Words (so take it for what it’s worth) observed two people on the south side of Indianapolis turned away from the polls because their photo ID did not have an address that matched the address on the voter roll. The ID is solely for the purpose of proving identity, not residency. So, if true, there are a couple of examples of unlawful voter disenfranchisement.

Robocalls

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Indiana’s law prohibiting automated telephone solicitations, robocalls, is the law that keeps on giving this campaign season. The first splash was made during a pro-Sodrel call that the State Attorney General deemed illegal — because it clearly was. Indiana’s law states that:

A caller may not use or connect to a telephone line an automatic dialing-announcing device unless:
(1) the subscriber has knowingly or voluntarily requested, consented to, permitted, or authorized receipt of the message; or
(2) the message is immediately preceded by a live operator who obtains the subscriber’s consent before the message is delivered.

(The Souder campaign had to use cut rate telemarketers who ended up having such heavy accents recipients couldn’t understand them when they delivered their anti-Hayhurst, anti-immigrant messages.)

Now it looks like a pro-Brizzi series of robocalls has also run afoul of the law in the Marion County Prosecutor’s race. The Indiana Republican Party subsequently fired Conquest Communications, a Virginia company hired to make the calls. They claim that the company used a live person to make the call and obtain consent prior to playing the message but the party fired the company because they wanted the calls to be 100% live. But telephone recordings of the calls have no live introduction, casting doubt on those claims.

TPMmuckraker has coverage of annoying and harassing Republican robocall efforts all across the country on election eve, including calls that attempt to disguise the source of the call.

About a hundred steps over the line

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Eric Zorn, a columnist and blogger for the Chicago Tribune, has a post up on a flyer put out by the Illinois Republican Party. A reader has advised me that the Indiana Republican Party is putting out the same flyer. It has a picture of Osama bin Laden and a statement that “liberal Democrats want to cut and run . . to withdraw from the battlefield in the war on terror. . . If you don’t vote, liberal Democrats will take control of Congress and end programs that stop terrorists.”

What utter crap. And it’s not at the same level of the utter crap that generally permeates elections. No, this is much more pernicious. What’s the message here? “If you want to change the failed policies in Iraq, then you’re aiding the terrorists.” As to why this flyer is so much worse than your run of the mill attack, Zorn puts it this way:

[T]his mailing is not an attack on a candidate, but an attack on a particular (and large) group of voters; a group of which I consider myself a member.

This mailer says that those who support Democratic candidates are in league with Osama bin Laden; are opposed to stopping terrorism.  I consider that to be significantly different from saying “Candidate X supports policies that will endanger our security.”

I sure hope we can put an end to this crap real soon now. The Army Times has written an editorial calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation, noting that “active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war’s planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.” I suppose they’re all pro-terrorist too.

IN-03: Just for the Record – dump Souder

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Just for the Record, a conservative blog, presents an interesting argument for Republicans to vote for Tom Hayhurst, the Democratic challenger to Mark Souder in Indiana’s Third District. The argument goes as follows:
1) Souder is not a conservative.
2) The Democrats seem poised take control of the House with or without Souder.
3) As long as the Democrats will be controlling the House for a time anyway, now is the time to dump Souder. With him gone, it’s more likely that a competent Republican candidate will emerge.
4) Primaries aren’t ideal times to dump an incumbent because the best potential candidates are not as likely to cross the Party leadership by challenging an incumbent.

Update Crap – I’m an idiot. I failed to recognize that it was Jeff Pruitt who made the post. He’s very much worth reading, but he’s not a conservative blogger. Thanks to Jeff for catching my error.

Elections Tomorrow

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If you’re reading this blog, chances are, you don’t need to know that the elections are tomorrow. I thought I’d share my philosophy. Nationally, any vote I have is going against the Republicans. Bush is arguably the worst President we’ve ever had. The federal budget is a tsunami of red ink. Our foreign policy is in a shambles. Civil liberties are eroding quickly. The Bush administration has made a fetish of secrecy in government administration. Bad policy is coupled with incompetent execution — see Iraq, and Katrina. Add to the mix a dash of wanting to legislate morality — Schiavo, stem cells, gay marriage, etc. and you have a horribly toxic brew. We need to clean house. I’m so disgusted, I think I’ll even vote against Dick Lugar, who I happen to like, and in favor of the Libertarian candidate even though such a vote will be futile.
My hope is that an electoral train wreck will cause some serious reorganization in the Republican Party that sees the ascendancy of the fiscal conservatives and foreign policy realists along with the demise of the neocons and the social conservatives. Then maybe there will be some real choices to be had come election time.

At the state level, the Republicans are much, much saner, but they’re headed in the wrong direction. They’re headed toward the social conservatives, but there are plenty of level headed Republicans with sound policy goals currently in power. I’m thinking of legislators like Luke Kenley and Richard Bray. Even aside from the Daylight Saving Time vote, upon which I’ve made my views clear, I do not like legislators like Woodruff and Bosma who champion the intermingling of religion and government and rubber stamp the Governor’s agenda. The Governor has some good ideas from time to time, but he is impatient with the legislative process. He needs a Democratic House to teach him some patience and, frankly, to have a vehicle for the Democrats to advance some of the good ideas that they have. Plus, I generally (with frequent exceptions) hold to the proposition that the government that governs best, governs least. Having chambers of the legislative body dominated by different political parties has a way of weeding out, or at least subjecting to intense review, the controversial ideas (such as DST and the Toll Road) while allowing good government no brainers to go through. Some folks may disagree with me, and say that gridlock is a bad thing. But, absent a real emergency, I’m not one of those who thinks it’s absolutely essential for a government to “do something” just for the sake of doing something. We’ve got plenty of laws on the books right now. Slowing down the pace of adding new ones probably won’t hurt us unduly.

Locally, party affiliation becomes less important. Politicians at the local level seem less motivated by idealogy and seem much more practical in their approach to tackling problems. They’re also much more accountable to citizens of either party simply because they see them on the street and in the community every day. So, at the local level, just throw party affiliation out the door. Try to talk to somebody who knows the candidates personally and simply vote for the one who seems smartest and most competent.

That’s my two cents. That and about $1.48 will get you a decent cup of coffee.