A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

IN-02: Chris Chocola being treated unfairly

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Matt Tully has a blog entry suggesting that it is politically smart of the Democrats to take Chris Chocola to task for not taking any action to try and stop Governor Daniels’ Toll Road privatization, but, it’s not fair of them to do so.

Essentially, Democrats are blasting Chocola for not being a phony. Essentially, they are criticizing him for not sending Daniels a wink-wink message cautioning against leasing the stretch of road. Essentially, Democrats are criticizing a congressman for not sticking his fingers in a debate he had no role in.

This was a Statehouse issue. Do Hoosiers really want members of Congress interfering with state issues?

. . .

[W]hen it comes to the toll road lease, what does that have to do with Congress?

As I pointed out in the comment section, Chocola was perfectly willing to write a letter to the United States Department of Transportation expressing his opinion that Elkhart County and St. Joseph County share the same time zone. Since, at that point, it was procedurally impossible for Elkhart County to be moved to Central Time, this was functionally a request that the USDOT deny St. Joseph County’s petition to be moved into the Central Time Zone.

This was an executive branch agency review of a county petition. What does that have to do with Congress? It’s fair of constituents to expect Chocola to show at least that much interest in the Toll Road privatization and to criticize him for failing to do so.

Chocola agrees with Frist on Taliban

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I think Chris Chocola is playing with fire if the AP is accurately reporting his agreement with Senator Bill Frist on how to deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The relevant part of the story is this:

Chocola said he agrees with U.S. Sen. Bill Frist the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan “can’t be won with guns and bullets.”

Education and economics will be the key, he said, recalling a group of boys happily running toward U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan when he visited there. The United States has to make sure those boys grow up to see Americans as their friends who built them schools and helped their parents’ businesses, he said.

But Donnelly said the Taliban in Afghanistan shielded Osama bin Laden.

“We have to go after him hard. We need to find him and we need to kill him,” he said.

Here is what Frist said about the Taliban:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday during a visit to Afghanistan that the war can never be won militarily and urged that the Taliban and their allies be brought into the government.

That’s a controversial sentiment for Chocola to endorse. I can certainly buy into the idea of co-opting allies of the Taliban. But asking Mullah Omar and the boys to come play ball with us after they harbored bin-Laden prior to 9/11 is a bit much. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for realpolitik and a practical approach to foreign affairs. But, that soft spot doesn’t extent to the Taliban. We have a debt to settle, and we’re not done yet. Perhaps if we hadn’t diverted all those resources to George W’s Iraqi adventure, we would have progressed in Afghanistan to a point where it was acceptable to let bygones be bygones.

IN-02, IN-09: Zogby Poll

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Zogby has released poll results for several races across the country. Among these are IN-02 and IN-09:

IN-02:
Republican Rep. Chris Chocola, one of the party’s three endangered incumbents in normally Republican Indiana, aired an ad claiming Bush was not tough enough on immigration. “We just disagree,” he said. He faces a challenge from Democratic businessman Joe Donnelly.
Democrat 48.5%
Republican 39%
Not sure: 11%

IN-09:
In a rematch of a close 2004 race, Republican Rep. Mike Sodrel and Democratic former congressman Baron Hill have battled over hot-button social issues like abortion and gay marriage. Their southern Indiana district leans Republican.
Democrat 46%
Republican 38%
Not sure: 14%

The polls were taken the week of Sept. 25 to Oct. 2 in 15 of the most competitive House districts across the country, including three days the sex scandal involving Florida Rep. Mark Foley’s explicit Internet messages to teenage male congressional pages. It bears mentioning that those three days were Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so I would guess that the poll doesn’t reflect the full brunt of the Foley scandal. The finger pointing over who knew what and when, and the conservative calls for Speaker Hastert’s resignation didn’t really get cooking until the beginning of the week.

Not included in the polling were several Republican-held districts where Democrats are favored, including that of Foley, who has resigned from the House, former Rep. Tom DeLay’s Texas district, Indiana Rep. John Hostettler’s district and the Pennsylvania seat of Rep. Don Sherwood, who suffered his own sex scandal last year.

IN-02: Chocola/Donnelly debate

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James Wensits, reporting for the South Bend Tribune, has an article on last night’s debate between challenger Joe Donnelly and incumbent Chris Chocola. He rated it something of a draw, or at least stated that neither candidate landed a knock-out blow.

Fred Brown, of Rochester, thought Donnelly won, thinking that Donnelly made a good point about Chocola sitting on his hands during the Toll Road privatization debate.

(An aside, but I certainly admire Mr. Wensits working the word “gigged” into his story:

The candidates also gigged each other on their willingness — or lack thereof — to conduct more debates than have been scheduled.

The most likely definition I found is “slang n. To give a military demerit to.”)

On the issues.
War in Iraq
Donnelly: “What we need is leadership in Washington as good as our troops. We can’t walk out of Iraq. We have to stabilize that country, and we have to win, but we need better leadership.”

Chocola: Conflates the War in Iraq with the War on Terror. (Doesn’t mention that it was Bush’s invasion that provided terrorists with opportunities in Iraq.)

Stem Cell Research
Donnelly: [T]here are different branches of stem cell research, such as adult stem cell research, cord stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research, where one stem cell can be taken out while the embryo continues with life. “That holds incredible potential for greater scientific development,” he said. “I believe in pushing the frontier, but in not damaging the embryos.”

Chocola: Agrees with Bush. Says the government shouldn’t pay for stem cell research but there is nothing wrong with it being funded privately.

Toll Road:

During the debate, Donnelly needled Chocola for not intervening in the Toll Road decision. “All you had to do to get started was to call Mitch Daniels, but you wouldn’t do it,” Donnelly said.

“Joe has no idea whether I called Mitch or not,” Chocola said after the debate. “This is a state issue,” he added, saying that if Donnelly wants to focus on the Toll Road, “he’s running for the wrong office.”

Let me repeat, “Joe has no idea whether I called Mitch or not.” How is that for an evasive answer? If he called Governor Daniels, he could have just said so. If he didn’t call Governor Daniels, why waste everybody’s time with that “you don’t know what I did” statement.

Gender confusion for the Count

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Ouch. From the South Bend Tribune:

The good news for U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola, R-2nd, is that his campaign against Democrat Joe Donnelly is mentioned prominently in today’s editions of the New York Times.

The bad news is that the paper apparently tried to change his gender.

A front-page caption under a photo of a Chocola campaign ad, says: “Representative Chris Chocola, a Republican, criticizes her opponent on illegal immigration.”

Toll Road: Elections may hinge on toll road deal

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Steve Walsh, writing for the Gary Post Tribune has a story on the effect privatizing the toll road may have on elections this November. (I seem to recall Gary Post Tribune links going stale pretty quickly, fwiw.)

With Republicans fighting to keep their narrow control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the 2nd District has been featured in recent articles in the New York Times and the Times of London as the poster child for voter discontent in America.

Gov. Mitch Daniels’ popularity remains low, especially in the seven counties along the Toll Road. A recent poll by Indianapolis’ WISH-TV shows a majority of Indiana citizens believe the lucrative Toll Road deal was a mistake, even though it is funding a record-breaking amount of road construction projects, known collectively as Major Moves. The plans call for spending $11.8 billion on road upgrades over 10 years.

. . .

At the Oasis Family Restaurant in Westville, the lunch crowd included truckers who fear rising tolls under the private company, and with less than two months to go before the November election, they said they plan to take out their frustration on Republicans.

The story has two quotes noting the foreignness of the Australian/Spanish consortium as a source of the objection. That’s a mistake. The sale would have been just as objectionable, in my mind, if it had been to Wal-Mart or Halliburton. The loyalties of any large corporation aren’t to their country of origin, but rather to their stockholders and to the bottom line. Indiana’s mistake in this is 1) transferring transportation infrastructure to a private, for-profit entity; and 2) setting up a scheme whereby the motorists of Northern Indiana are taxed to pay for road construction throughout the state.

IN-02: Republican pollster has Chocola up by 5% over Donnelly

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James Wensits, writing for the South Bend Tribune, has a story reporting that a Republican polling outfit by the name of Mercury Public Affairs claims that Chocola has a 5% lead over Donnelly, specifically, their numbers have Chocola up 45.5% versus 40.5% with 13.9% undecided. The sample included 39.7% Republicans, 37% Democrats, and 18.2% independent. (Which, out of a sample of 300 people, means 119 Republicans, 111 Democrats, and 70 independents.)

This contrasts with the poll numbers in another story written by Mr. Wensits featuring the WSBT/South Bend Tribune poll (conducted by Research 2000 of Rockville Maryland) sampling 400 likely voters, showing Donnelly ahead 50% to 42% with 8% undecided and a 5% margin of error.

Both pollsters “stand by their numbers.” I didn’t see the break down of voter affiliation in the South Bend Tribune poll. In any case, if conventional wisdom holds up, Chocola is in some trouble even with his poll numbers. He’s below 50% approval and there are 13% undecideds. The conventional wisdom is that undecideds typically break significantly toward the challenger.

IN-02: Donnelly’s lead over Chocola increasing

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A WSBT/South Bend Tribune poll indicates that Chocola is falling further behind challenger Joe Donnelly to represent Indiana’s Second Congressional District. The story doesn’t give overall numbers but indicates Donnelly’s 5% lead has increased to 8% while the undecideds have shrunk from 13% to 8%. Chocola has apparently been wasting his time by barraging potential voters with attacks on Donnelly over some tardiness in paying state property taxes. 71% of poll respondents said that that information would not make them less likely to vote for Donnelly.

Labor Day: What does it mean to me?

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I’ve been tagged by PSoTD with the question “What does the federal holiday, “Labor Day”, really mean to you?”

To be honest, it doesn’t mean that much to me. It’s a day off work, I suppose. But, since I’m a small business owner, that just means I’ll probably go into work anyway and just get a bit more done since the phones won’t be ringing. But even when I was an employee rather than an employer, it didn’t mean a great deal to me.

It should mean more to me, however. I believe a healthy labor movement leads to a healthier society. I am really not a believer in supply-side/trickle down economics. I think that when wealth becomes concentrated in the ultra-rich hands of a relatively small segment of the society, it tends to distort our markets and our democratic institutions. Certainly, I don’t think the wealth flows easily from the ultra-rich to the middle class. The labor movement helps facilitate that flow.

When society’s wealth is less concentrated in the hands of the ultra rich and spread out a bit more, I think our markets are healthier, our democracy is more robust, and our communities are stronger. I think the economy works better when you have a lot of people buying washers and dryers than it does when a few people are buying Faberge eggs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for some worker’s paradise or communist utopia. I like the fact that people who work harder or smarter can reap greater rewards, because that also is critical to a healthy economy. But there has to be balance. And labor unions help provide that balance.

A little more national attention for Indiana

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The Washington Post has an article on the vulnerability of GOP districts across the nation. Unsurprisingly, Indiana gets a mention:

Even more worrisome to the Republicans is Indiana, where three House incumbents — Reps. Chris Chocola, John N. Hostettler and Michael E. Sodrel — could fall to Democratic challengers. There, Bush’s weaknesses have been compounded by the problems of freshman Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (R), who is in hot water over his decisions to switch some counties to new time zones and to lease the Indiana Toll Road to a foreign consortium.

I would be at least a little amused if Troy “I’ll never vote for it” Woodruff’s switch in time has the effect of changing the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives. Woodruff and Daniels get another mention in an Indy Star article on the Indiana campaigns. Daniels seems to be a political pariah, raising money for the candidates but otherwise staying out of view. Woodruff is a top target for the Democrats.