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.

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.

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.

Couldn’t resist the obscure title. Anyway, a reader flagged this issue for me, and I’m kind of creeped out by all the donations going from All Children Matter to Indiana Republicans. But these folks aren’t local, they spread their money around the country. The organization is funded by Dick DeVos out of the DeVos Amway fortune (and, to some extent, apparently the Wal-Mart fortune.) All Children Matter is devoted to privatizing our educational system through use of vouchers and similar schemes or, to use their characterization, offering “school choice.”

First, I’m a little leerie, perhaps unjustifiably so, of the connection between Amway — a business that apparently has characteristics similar to a cult — and educating our children. Second, the amount of money going into Indiana campaigns is remarkable. I previously mentioned $50,000 going to Tom Dermody.

But it looks like ACM is spreading it around liberally. (Oh, and hey, what do you know? They are affiliated with social conservative election law attorney James Bopp, Jr.). In the 12 key house races that Mary Beth Schneider called Hot races:

District 17, Steve Heim $1,000.00 from All Children Matter
District 20 Tom Dermody $53,000.00
District 21 Jackie Walorski $1,000.00
District 30 John Smith $4,500.00 on 10-13-2006
District 31 Tim Harris $1,000.00 on 10-03-2006
District 33 Bill Davis $1,000.00 on 10-10-2006
District 46 Vern Tincher report not online
District 52 Martin Stutzman report not online
District 64 Troy Woodruff $1,750.00 in three payments
District 69 Billy Bright $20,000.00 on 10-25-06……yes 20 grand!
District 70 Christopher Byrd $500.00 on 10-12-2006
District 86 Kathy Densborn $2,000.00 on 10-12-2006

During the period between April 8, 2006 to October 13, 2006, they donated $258,000. Some of the other larger donations: Brian Bosma received $5,000; Bob Behning received $2,500; Our friends at Faulkner strategies — the folks who get so much money from Jackie Walorski — received $26,507; Our other friends — the PAC for the Indiana Chamber of commerce — received $9,400; Jeff Brantley (not familiar with this name) received $17,000 or more; about $50,000 went to advertising through a direct mail outfit called Majority Communications out of Columbus, Ohio; and another media buy went through a D.C. media outfit by the name of Strategic Media Services, Inc at an expense of $20,000.

So, what do you think? Have they bought themselves some school privatization in 2007?

Update All Children Matter appears to be involved in some of the nasty mailers Matt Tully complained about that were sent out on behalf of Katheryn Densborn in her bid to unseat David Orentlicher.

Advance Indiana suggests that there could be a Libertarian upset in the making. Citing the Indiana Daily Insight, AI reports that there is a tight 3-way race to represent Indiana’s 54th House District over in eastern Indiana. Tom Saunders, the incumbent, is facing a stiff challenge from the Libertarian, Rex Bell and Democratic candidate, David Sadler.

Saunders incumbency seems to have been tainted by his son, Andrew Saunders’, hit and run accident that left pedestrian Thomas Jackman dead. Andrew had apparently been drinking quite a bit before trying to drive home from the Elks’ Lodge when he struck Jackman and fled the scene. He was sentenced to four years in jail. Advance Indiana suggests that perhaps the relative lightness of the sentence as well as some issues concerning a potential delay of Tom Saunders reporting the incident to the police after he learned of it may be dogging Rep. Saunders reelection campaign.

Update Mark Rutherford has a post with the numbers:

Results of last night’s poll commissioned by the Libertarian Party of Indiana on Libertarian Rex Bell’s Indiana House District 54 race:

Among Decided Voters
Saunders (R) (I) : 35.4%
Bell (L) : 33.1%
Sadler (D) 31.3%

It’s a horse race folks!!!!!! Look out for Libertarian Party of Indiana press releases on this. Opinion Factor conducted the poll.

Advance Indiana suggests that there could be a Libertarian upset in the making. Citing the Indiana Daily Insight, AI reports that there is a tight 3-way race to represent Indiana’s 54th House District over in eastern Indiana. Tom Saunders, the incumbent, is facing a stiff challenge from the Libertarian, Rex Bell and Democratic candidate, David Sadler.

Saunders incumbency seems to have been tainted by his son, Andrew Saunders’, hit and run accident that left pedestrian Thomas Jackman dead. Andrew had apparently been drinking quite a bit before trying to drive home from the Elks’ Lodge when he struck Jackman and fled the scene. He was sentenced to four years in jail. Advance Indiana suggests that perhaps the relative lightness of the sentence as well as some issues concerning a potential delay of Tom Saunders reporting the incident to the police after he learned of it may be dogging Rep. Saunders reelection campaign.

Voting for Privatizing the Toll Road and supporting (or at least not
impeding) Daylight Saving Time appears to have been very lucrative for northern Indiana Republicans. The campaign finance reports are coming in, and they make for some interesting –to a geek such as myself– reading.

Jackie Walorski (Swihart) – She came in for quite a bit of criticism for missing a committee vote where she could have stopped the first incarnation of the Daylight Saving Time bill from making it out of committee. It’s my understanding that, had that bill been defeated in committee, the second incarnation of the DST bill, which ultimately passed, would not have been permitted under House Rules. And, obviously, she was a critical vote in privatizing the Toll Road. To date, Walorski has added around $217,000 to her war chest. The big money, to the tune of about $100,000 came from the House Republican Campaign Committee. This is good news to her political consultants, Target/Faulkner Strategies, a Republican political shop with ties to the St. Joseph County GOP, to whom she paid almost $72,000. Nice work if you can get it. Compare this to her race in 2004 where she raised only about $60,000 total (that time around, Target Strategies made only about $23,000 working on behalf of Ms. Walorski.) Ms. Walorski is being challenged by  Bob Kovach who has, to date, raised about $70,000. About $28,000 of this has come from the Indiana Democratic Party. Playing with the numbers a little bit, it appears that something like 25% of Kovach’s money comes from small donor’s (donations under $100) while only about 3% of Walorski’s come from small donors.

Rep. Steve Heim (see his blog here) was in the “I voted against it before I voted for it before I voted against it” camp of the DST debate. Rep. Heim has managed to raise about $167,000 for his race. Compare this to 2004 where he raised about $60,000. His 2006 war chest came courtesy of $25,000 from Indiana Business for Responsive Government, the political action committee for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce which spearheaded the efforts to implement Daylight Saving Time in Indiana; and about $68,000 from the House Republican Campaign Committee. (I’m sure Rep. Heim is generally supportive of the Chamber’s initiatives, so it would be unfair to suggest their generosity is solely because of his aid on April 11, 2005 when he could have killed the DST bill.) In all, about 84% of Rep. Heim’s campaign money comes from the Chamber, the State Republicans, and other sources from out of his district. In contrast to Ms. Walorski’s expenditures, Rep. Heim’s money went toward buying advertising from various sources, mostly the House Republican Campaign Committee. Heim is being challenged by former State Senator Nancy Dembowski. The bulk of her finance reports are not yet online.

I’m not quite sure what to make of the candidacy of Tom Dermody, who beat long-time Republican Mary Kay Budak in the primaries. He has raised about $200,000 for his campaign. However, he is certainly not being rewarded for his stance on toll road privatization. Budak voted for Toll Road privatization and Dermody beat her handily in the Republican primary. He has gotten about $85,000 from the Indiana Chamber’s PAC. This could conceivably be payback against Budak who voted against Daylight Saving Time — or that could be part of my fevered imagination. Slightly more curious is the $53,000 Mr. Dermody has received from an organization called “All Children Matter.” This is an organization devoted to implementing school vouchers across the country. Dermody’s candidacy is not quite as much of a cash-cow for Target Faulkner Strategies as is the Walorski campaign, but he did pay them about $7,800 this year for their strategery. All Children Matter (ACM) only gave about $1,000 apiece to Walorski and Heim. According to this site, ACM is “a right-wing group formed in Spring 2003 based in Michigan advocating school choice in the form of private school voucher programs and charter schools. . . . This group is headed by Michigan multimillionaire Dick DeVos, whose family is connected to Amway Corporation. DeVos’ wife Betsy served for several years as the chair of the Michigan Republican Party. Her brother, Erik Prince, is the founder and owner of Blackwater Security Consulting, the private tactical training facility providing security forces in Baghdad.” Good to know in advance where Dermody is going to be coming from, I guess; if he’s going to be carrying water for DeVos.