Taking Down Words is one of the more venerable blogs in the Indiana blogosphere — yeah, that means 3 years or so. For most of that time, Jen Wagner has been the writer behind the TDW nom-de-blog. At one point, early on, I believe it was operated by several people before becoming a sole proprietorship. Now she’s stepping down as a blogger and stepping up to work for Jim Schellinger’s gubernatorial campaign. She says that being a parent has softened her up. Odd, I think it’s made me crabbier.

In any case, I’ll miss the free-form Democratic snark. Now she’ll have to worry about messages and articulating a candidate’s vision and all that serious stuff. It’ll be interesting to see if and how the site evolves.

Here we are, just a few weeks from the primaries, and I know very little about the Democratic gubernatorial candidates. For months, I have told myself that I’d get up to speed on them, and still I haven’t. The shiny, shiny Presidential campaign has apparently distracted me from the more mundane – though probably more important to our day-to-day lives – governor’s race.

Admittedly, I haven’t been making a great deal of effort to get to know these candidates, but if they haven’t seeped into my consciousness, I suspect they have a long way to go in terms of making the average Hoosier aware of their campaigns.

On the Republican side, we know they’ll be running against Mitch “Central Time” Daniels, seller of the Toll Road, privatizer-in-chief, and steward of Indiana’s economic hot streak. He’s going into soft, fuzzy campaign mode and has really dialed things down in the last year or so. We’ll see if Hoosiers view him as My Man Mitch, his campaign persona; or remember Lord Mitch, the Autocrat, his governing persona.

The Democratic candidates are Jill Long Thompson and Jim Schellinger.

Long Thompson was born in raised in north-eastern Indiana and, according to Wikipedia, holds a Ph.D. in business from IU and was a professor before entering politics. After unsuccessful campaigns for Senate and Congress, she was elected to represent Indiana’s 4th Congressional District from 1989 – 1993 before she was defeated by Mark Souder who still represents the area (promises about limiting himself to 6 terms, notwithstanding). After she left, Congress, Long Thompson served as Under Secretary of Agriculture for Rural Development under the Clinton administration until 2001. Since then she has a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and has most recently served as CEO and Senior Fellow at the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy.

Schellinger is a native of South Bend who earned his architecture degree from Notre Dame. He went to work for CSO Architects and became president of the company. I think we can characterize him as “successful Indiana businessman.” His public service resume is obviously thinner than Long Thompson’s. But, time working for the government obviously shouldn’t be the only factor one considers in a candidate. So, some time in the future, we’ll get around to talking about what the candidates figure to do for Indiana if elected.

Gov. Daniels referred to the tax restructuring legislation that passed the General Assembly a “new era of taxpayer protection.” That’s an odd way to refer to legislation that raises sales taxes by more than 16% and likely forces local governments to raise local option income taxes. Certainly there are arguments to be made that sales and income taxes are better ways for government to pay for stuff than property taxes. But, “new era of taxpayer protection” is hyperbolic nonsense.