Jack Colwell has a good column in the South Bend Tribune on Indiana’s Second Congressional race where he debunks the notion that Chocola is struggling in his race against Joe Donnelly because he was blindsided or took his re-election for granted. That’s apparently the “common wisdom” developing among the Beltway commentariat. Colwell points out that Chocola was raising money early, has put out television ads early, and has seemed perfectly well aware that he would have trouble because, among other things, he is strongly associated with an unpopular Governor, an unpopular President, and an unpopular Republican Congress in a Congressional District that isn’t nearly as Republican as everybody seems to think.
If Chocola gets beat, it won’t be because he let a sure thing slip away through hubris or inattentiveness. Rather, it will be because he tried as hard as he could, and the citizens of the District still didn’t want him to represent them.
That may be, but something else that came through in that article was the impression that Chocola plans to play his own version of “rope a dope” and lay his chips on his GOTV operation, an operation to be funded at least in part by the national Republican Congressional Committee. I figure that will include door to door and direct mail in addition to phone calls designed to stoke the fears among the base and besmirch Joe Donnelly and the Democratic party. (“would you be comfortable with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House? “would you be more or less likely to vote for Joe Donnelly if you knew that he paid his property taxes late?”)
One thing that will probably not be included in their GOTV plan: a list of Chocola’s “accomplishments” during his four years in Congress.
It would be nice now if Jack would quite letting Chocola off the hook. Sure Mitch hasn’t done him any favors, but if Chocola had actually done anything for his district he wouldn’t be in this mess. How about holding him accountable for the meager highway funding he’s gotten, while voting to spend half a billion on bridges in Alaska?