IN-04: Republican Primary Candidates

May 4, 2010 primary:

Jon Acton (twitter) – According to his website, he’s a member of the Brownsburg School Board, has been a U.S. Government teacher at Avon and Edgewood, an assistant principal at Speedway and Edgewood, and head football coach at Avon and Edgewood. He is campaigning as Everyman.

Cheryl Denise Allen – I haven’t found much information on her yet. She’s from Martinsville, and I believe she’s an artist. But Google wasn’t turning up a web page.

Mike Campbell – I wasn’t immediately able to find information online I was confident had to do with this person.

Daniel Dunham – He’s from Mooresville. (And there is a guy with the same name from Idaho who is apparently very active on right wing Internet sites.)

Jim Hass – Again, nothing online that I could find. (This post isn’t turning out to be anywhere near as informative as I had hoped.)

Charlie Henderson – Mayor of Greenwood and former police chief. He is also, I believe, the uncle to state senator Brent Waltz. The mayor of the Indianapolis suburb wants to be “a voice of small town America.”

Brandt Hershman – He is a state senator and manager of Hershman Farms and was District Operations Director for Representative Steve Buyer since 1992. He also apparently worked at the White House from 1989-1991. He has to be counted as one of the top prospects for this seat.

LaRon “Formerly known as firefighter?” Keith – He looks to be a perennial type candidate, challenging Buyer last cycle when he couldn’t get the signatures needed to run for governor.

Todd Rokita – Our current Secretary of State. He’s a big name in this race. The knock against him seems to be that he’s in office for the sake of being in office – looking to the next big thing. (My big knock against him was that “faith-based voter fraud” warning paid for on the public dime where he made sure you knew his name and made sure to talk about “The Lord” in case you didn’t know he was a Christian.)

Mark Seitz – Mr. Seitz is pro-“Common Sense” (which, to me, always sounds like anti-“fancy book learnin.”) Looks like he’s been a Bloomington restaurateur, stock broker, mortgage industry service provider, and now works out of Greenwood where he “manages services that provide continuous emergency power to municipalities.” Stock market and mortgage industry? Not saying that Mr. Seitz had anything to do with it, but that’s like a who’s who of how our economy got wrecked over the past decade. He’s a Lambda Chi Alpha. I don’t have anything particular against them.

PJ Steffen – I don’t have any information on him. Mr. Steffen was kind enough to send me a link to his web page. He lives in the Avon area of Hendricks County and currently works for Rolls-Royce as an Assistant Chief Engineer and Manager in the Future Programs group. He describes himself as a social and fiscal conservative who believes the role of government should be limited. (This raises an interesting point in my mind. Typically, it seems to me, fiscal conservatives are intent on limiting the role of government whereas social conservatives often seem to envision a more active role for government in promulgating their vision of the proper morality.)

Eric Wathen (twitter) – A 6th generation Hoosier out of Brownsburg. (6th generation is something – I’m 5th generation, and that ancestor got to Indy in about 1850 or thereabouts) and another Lambda Chi. He is a civil engineer with a degree from Rose-Hulman and a Hendricks County Commissioner. Not bad for a 35 year old. He might be a dark horse to keep an eye on. He describes himself as “very conservative” and is also a fan of “common sense.”

Mike Young – A state senator out of Indianapolis. Among many other things he’s done as a state senator, one that jumped out at me is that he has proposed that the state government form a committee to study the “principles of firearms freedom.” Specifically “Firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition that are manufactured in Indiana from basic materials without the inclusion of any significant parts imported from another state and are retained in Indiana should not be subject to federal law or federal regulation.” That’s a two-fer, states’ rights and guns. Bravo, sir, bravo! Of course, forming a government committee on the subject erodes the “small government” side of the ledger.