According to an article in the Louisville Courier Journal, Democratic incumbent Baron Hill is running strong. What’s more surprising is that Mike Sodrel is apparently running a lifeless campaign in this re-re-rematch. Libertarian Candidate Eric Schansberg has ads running where “Millionaire Mike” Sodrel does not.
The lone public poll in the race — by Survey USA, which uses recorded voices to ask questions — shows Hill with an 11-point lead over Sodrel. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
Of the 603 likely voters surveyed Sept. 8-10, 50 percent said they planned to vote for Hill, 39 percent said Sodrel and 5 percent said Schansberg, with the rest undecided.
As a third party candidate — no matter how compelling his platform — Schansberg isn’t going to close a 40 point gap as a Third Party Candidate. (Sorry Dr. Schansberg). But, what I would love to see is for Schansberg to eat into a huge chunk of Sodrel’s base; and not so much because this would also help Hill. I want a Democratic Congress this year, but Hill isn’t my favorite Democrat. The dynamic I would like to see is for the major parties to see that libertarian principles are attractive to voters. Usually this results in a shift by one or both of the parties to co-opt those principles. We’ll never see anything like pure libertarianism — and I’ve reached a point where I realize that I personally wouldn’t want to — but a shift in that direction would be welcome. The larger the percentage Dr. Schansberg is able to rack up in this election, the less likely his positions will be ignored in future elections.
Incidentally, I’ve taken Steve Buyer to task for not debating Nels Ackerson. I have to do the same for Baron Hill who says he won’t debate until Sodrel “apologizes” for his childish antics during the transition when Hill beat Sodrel. Sounds like a pretext to me. The Ninth District deserves a debate (though, not as much as the Fourth District for whom meaningful Congressional debates have been absent for a long time.)
Schansberg found that in 2006, he “took votes from” Hill moreso than from Sodrel, on the basis of his solid position on Iraq. Don’t know if that would play out this time, because Iraq seems not to be on people’s minds due to the economic nightmare… which makes Schansberg’s status as an economist all the more compelling. But, as you point out, compelling campaigns don’t rake in the votes like the old dogs do, but the promise of co-opted points is very attractive. Ultimately, I’m not nearly as interested in who wins as which policies will prevail. (Sorry, Eric!)
Hill was such a screamer for debates in 2006. Well, he was the challenger. Now that he is the incumbent, he has everything to lose, and isn’t going to show up. Any excuse will do. Typical.
Thanks Doug!
I’d love to hit double-digits on Nov 4. I think people would take note of that. And if we can do that in a poll before the end, I like to think/imagine/dream that things could get a lot more interesting– creating a buzz and natural momentum that we cannot finance.
Thanks for sharing this information. I’d also like to know where these candidates stand on health, research and investment in science.
Research!America, my employer, has invited all candidates for Congress, including Dr. Schansberg, Mr. Sodrel and Mr. Hill to respond to a questionnaire at http://www.yourcandidatesyourhealth.org. So far, only Dr. Schansberg has responded.
Overall, four candidates from Indiana have responded to our survey, as have presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.
Hope you and your readers will find this information useful as you prepare to cast your ballots in November!
Doug,
Thanks for taking a poke at Baron over the 9th District debate(s). After waiting a few weeks, Mike joined me on Wednesday; Baron joined Mike and I at Friday’s deadline.
It’s still ridiculous that there’s only one debate in the 9th District– after all the noise Baron made about debates in 2006.
And actually, the televised portion of the two-hour event will not be a debate, but a series of three 18-minute interviews with a panel. (The debate is in the second hour– not scheduled to be televised so far.)
The good news is that all (televised) eyes will be focused on that one forum, so hopefully, it’s a doozy!