The Indy Star informs us that Charlie White’s failure to obey election law with respect to his town council seat might hurt him and it might not hurt him in his bid to become the State’s chief election law official. Right now, like Schrodinger’s Cat, I guess it exists in both states at once. Much like White was part of two election districts at once until his transgression was observed.

White moved out of the district in which he was a Fisher’s Town Councilman. You see, he “inadvertently had moved out of his designated council district and voted in a precinct where he no longer lived.”

One analyst has said that White has “embraced” the situation and so it shouldn’t hurt him. But, I’m not sure he has embraced it. His explanations make him seem absent-minded or incompetent; and, in any case, maybe it’s because I’m a parent of younger children, but the “I forgot” or “it was an accident” type explanations frequently seem implausible.

Perhaps we’ll be treated to the “let’s focus on the issues” gambit to change the subject from this incident. But, really, what issues do the electorate or media really focus on in the Secretary of State race?

I’ll admit it. Election Law is not my strong suit. Title 3 of the Indiana Code gives me a headache. But, there is a very significant difference between me and Charlie White. He’s running for Secretary of State, and I’m not. As Eric Bradner reports (and a ton of others) for the Evansville Courier Press, White has been violating residency requirements for his current position as a town councilman for Fishers, Indiana. White does not live in the district he represents.

Advance Indiana also makes the point that White is a Republican county chairman and an attorney. If it’s anyone’s job to know the residency requirements necessary to serve in office, it’s White’s. His defense is that “he didn’t know” his residence was outside of his council district.

This matter makes it difficult to believe that, as Secretary of State, White would make an effort to know the laws he is supposed to enforce and, if he did know them, to faithfully enforce those laws.

White has given his Secretary of State opponent, Vop Osili, a major campaign issue in a race that voters typically fail to notice. Osili has responded to this with:

“If these charges are true, this is not only alarming and troubling, but it also raises questions to as whether this individual should be given the public’s trust to oversee elections and the voting process.

As our state’s Chief Administrator of Elections, the Secretary of State should set the standards for integrity, and fairness with regard to voting and the election process, and of course adhere to the letter of the law—not bend or break the rules to suit personal gains.

Update Hoosier Access offers a weak defense:

[U]nless you’re a diehard political junkie such as myself the last thing on your mind when you buy a house or rent an apartment is which voting precinct it is located.

Again, Charlie White is running to be Secretary of State – recognizing election law violations and enforcing them is one of the primary jobs of that office. In addition, he is a county political party chairman and an attorney. Also, White was “too busy” for such niceties.

Other offices and other factual scenarios might make this residency violation incidental, but for this race, it seems like a pretty central issue.

David Sanders, the Democratic nominee in Indiana’s 4th Congressional District, sent out a press release indicating that he and the Libertarian candidate, John Duncan, I believe, have agreed to a debate schedule. So far, Todd Rokita has apparently indicated a general desire to debate, has been invited, but has not been responsive to requests for specific debate times.

The debates are scheduled in Ellettsville at 7:30 PM on August 10 and Greenwood at 7:00 PM on August 24. It’s the same old dance, I suppose. Everyone agrees in principle that candidate debates are a healthy thing in a democracy. But, as a practical matter, a front runner does not have a great deal of incentive to debate. Mostly they have something to lose and not much to gain. Having secured the Republican nomination in the heavily Republican 4th District, Mr. Rokita probably isn’t feeling a lot of pressure to actually engage in a debate. This will always be the sort of calculus a front runner makes until voters punish a candidate for not debating or for dancing around the issue until agreeing at the last possible moment.

This was going to be the season of the Tea Party. They were going to bring their anti-government sensibility to bear and clean house. These weren’t merely Republicans who were disgruntled because their team was out of power. No, no! These were people of principal, damn it! They were dormant but growing disgruntled during the Bush administration’s big government, big spending. It was just a coincidence that the straw that broke the camel’s back came right when President Obama took office.

This primary has taught us that, if the Tea Party is a movement of people who are principled warriors against the Establishment, they are toothless and the media coverage they received wildly exceeds their power. In Indiana, the old guard seems to be coming through the primary unscathed. The Once & Future Senator, North Carolinian/D.C. lobbyist Dan Coats has been ushered from moth balls to the Republican nomination. Todd Rokita is coming from 8 years in the Secretary of State’s Office to Indiana’s Fourth District. Dan Burton will return for his millionth term as will Mark Souder.

Incumbent Democrats may very well lose seats in November. But, if they do, this primary tells us that it’s not some sort of sign that people are fed up with business as usual in Washington – it’s just going to be a good old fashioned power struggle between Republicans and Democrats.

Tomorrow is an interesting primary day, particularly for the Republicans (at least in my neck of the woods.) The GOP has a crowded primary field in the Senate and in Indiana’s Fourth Congressional District. Other Congressional Districts have a lot of primary activity as well.

So, who are you going to vote for? What are your predictions?

I’m just guessing, but I’ll say:

Senate – Dan Coats.
IN-01: Mark Leyva (no idea, but that was the one name I recognized)
IN-02: Jackie Walorski (though Tony “Illinois Nazi birthday party” Zirkle would be fun)
IN-03: Mark Souder (could be close though, he is not well liked and has some legitimate competition.)
IN-04: Toss-up, but I’ll guess Rokita – just from the name recognition he garnered by plastering his name on heavy Secretary of State advertising.
IN-05: Dan Burton because all of the anti-Burton votes will cancel out.
IN-06: Mike Pence is unchallenged.
IN-07: No idea, I’ll say Carlos May.
IN-08: No idea, I’ll pick Larry Bucshon out of a hat.
IN-09: Mike Sodrel for the re-re-re (I lost count) match against Baron Hill.

Unlike me, Jon Easter provides some actually informed opinion. What kind of predictions do you folks have?

The candidates running to be the Republican nominee for Senate blamed the spending on the Democrats. And, in other news, the sun rose in the east.

The candidates – former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, former Rep. John Hostettler, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman of Howe, financial adviser Don Bates Jr. of Winchester and Fishers businessman Richard Behney – all took part in the two-hour round table at River of Life Community Church.
. . .
They did little to distinguish themselves on the issues Saturday, all blaming Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress for runaway government spending and bigger government.

If you disagree with current federal spending levels, and there is an argument to be made, I would suggest that you can’t expect much relief from candidates who simply blame the other party. Democrats have to own the fact that they’re the party in control at the moment, have controlled Congress since 2007, and have controlled the White House since 2009. Republicans have to own the fact that federal spending and budgets were under much better control before Bush and the Republican Congresses of the early 2000s.

Candidates who don’t understand (or won’t acknowledge) how we got where we are currently aren’t likely to be able to do much about getting us somewhere else. Just saying “the other side sucks,” won’t cut it. Mind you, this isn’t an argument for bipartisanship just for bipartisanship’s sake; just that there is blame to go around — though, not necessarily equally apportioned among both major political parties. I once read that only the powerless can ever truly be innocent; which, I suppose, explains some of the appeal of 3rd parties in our country.

For people auditioning to become one of the foremost lawmakers in the country and, really, among the most powerful people on the planet, these fellas aren’t inspiring a lot of confidence in their organizational skills or legal acumen.

Four of the five GOP candidates in the May 4 U.S. Senate primary in Indiana failed to file their personal financial disclosure statements by the required deadline this month.

Marlin Stutzman is the only one who met the deadline. Dan Coats “relied on faulty advice.” Don Bates claimed “some ambiguity in the deadline.” John Hostettler was waiting on someone to send him a packet. Richard Behney didn’t provide any information.

If one of these guys becomes Senator, that person will, no doubt, contribute to a legal system where the little people get hamstrung when they blow a deadline.

Primary season is in full swing and most of the action, at least for federal races, seems to be on the Republican end. I think I’m one of the few residents of IN-04 who isn’t running for Congress. There is also a lot of activity for the Senate race, IN-05 to challenge incumbent Dan Burton, and IN-08 to take advantage of Brad Ellsworth’s departure and challenge presumed Democratic nominee Trent VanHaaften.

Initially, I’d meant to turn this into a run down of all of the primary races, but that’s a lot of work, so I’ll just discuss the Senate for the moment.

Writing for the Indianapolis Star, Mary Beth Schneider summarized the responses of Republican Senate primary candidates on three major topics. Don Bates wants to change social security, particularly for people under 40 (not sure what those changes are, exactly) and cut federal salaries by 5%. Richard Behney, somewhat unhelpfully, says “everything is on the table.” John Hostetler is unwilling to cut military expenditures but everything else is fair game. And, The Once and Future Senator, Dan Coates, perhaps inevitably, goes retro bringing us Republican budgetary hits of yesteryear such as a balanced budget amendment and the line item veto. (My memory is fuzzy here, but I seem to remember the line-item veto being struck down as unconstitutional.) Marlin Stutzman likes those but also threw in the new anti-earmark panacea.

On illegal immigration, as you might expect, they’re all against it. Bates wants to round ’em all up and deport them immediately. Behney added a gratuitously violent metaphor, suggesting that if you try to sneak in through the back door you’re likely to be shot. Coats was a little more bland, being the son of Swedish immigrants, apparently (do we have his birth certificate?) Hostettler suggests that we go after the companies hiring illegal immigrants (a “drain the swamp” approach, I would suggest.) And Stutzman, like the rest, emphasizes “securing the borders.” No word on how any of them will do this with their insistence that government needs to be smaller and we cut spending across the board.

On gays in the military, Bates seems to be out of touch. He says the President should listen to military advisers, that he wouldn’t have implemented “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the first place, but now that it’s in place, it shouldn’t be repealed. In fact, top military commanders have recently said that don’t ask, don’t tell should go. Behney had an answer that was refreshingly honest and suggests that he’s someone folks might want to pay attention to, even if they ultimately disagree with his positions and choose to vote for another.

He said he’d been in the Navy. “I served with gay men and gay women,” he said. “Quite frankly, I’ve known gay men and women that I would trust with my very life. . . . As long as you can do the job, I think you should be allowed to serve.”

Coats, once again, goes retro, embracing the idea that gays should serve secretly in the military, thereby, somehow, alleviating sexual tension in the ranks. Hostettler wants to root out gays in the military and disallow them from serving. Stutzman wants to avoid controversy by ignoring it. (As Bullwinkle’s pal, Rocky, liked to tell us, “that trick never works.”)

Hoosier Advocate cites a poll that the Once and Future candidate, lobbyist and North Carolinian, Dan Coats is currently leading the pack with Hostettler coming in a close second. Stutzman is apparently fairly close. None of them has a commanding lead in this poll, Coats pulling in 29%, Hostettler at 26%, and Stutzman pulling in 18%. Abdul isn’t necessarily convinced of the soundness of the polling, but says that, in any event, it confirms his sense of how the race is going. There is a lot of wiggle room though, with almost 20% undecided.

Not that anyone is going to take political advice from me, but it seems to me that Coats and Hostettler are damaged for the current political environment. Coats is the GOP establishment. He is a lobbyist. And, he hasn’t really been a Hoosier for quite some time. Hostettler is a closer bet because he stuck to his ideological guns (no matter how misguided), but the fact remains he was part of the D.C. clusterfuck in the early 00s. I still figure Stutzman to be the Republicans’ best bet, but maybe that’s because I don’t know a whole lot about him. After that debate, Bates and Behney warrant closer watching than I would have anticipated.

Just an aside since I confined this post to the Senate race, but Thomas Langhorne, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, always provides outstanding coverage of the southwestern Indiana political scene. In this case, he is writing about the debate between candidates for the Republican nomination in IN-08.

The Indy Star has a short piece on Pete Buttigieg who is running to be the Democratic nominee for state Treasurer to take on the quixotic Richard Mourdock.

Buttigieg has a politically unwieldy last name and he’s young, 28, but he’s probably smarter than you (and me):

Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard University and studied economics at Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar. Until recently, he was employed at the Chicago office of the McKinsey & Co. consulting firm, specializing in economic development, energy and logistics. He resigned to launch his campaign.

Sure, we have an anti-intellectual streak a mile wide in this country where we want politicians to go with their gut and not any silly book-learnin’. (See, e.g. Mourdock’s position with Chrysler – to him it just *felt* wrong, never mind that there was no scenario in which his legal wrangling would yield more money to Indiana on its questionable investment.) But, between you and me, I want a guy who’s handy with the spreadsheets when it comes to watching over the state’s money.

Mary Beth Schneider, for the Indianapolis Star, is reporting that a date has been set for a debate between Republican primary candidates for the U.S. Senate.

The debate, sponsored by the Indiana Debate Commission, will have members of the public asking questions of the candidates: former Sen. Dan Coats; State Sen. Marlin Stutzman; former U.S. Rep. John Hostettler; plumbing company owner Richard Behney and financial adviser Don Bates Jr.

(Incidentally, I wonder how a journalist chooses the order for such a list. Random? Perceived likelihood of victory? Government officeholders before non-government officeholders? Glad I’m just a blogger where an acceptable answer is “whatever I feel like.”)

The debate will be on WFYI with moderator Amos Brown.