WISH-TV has some poll numbers out that apparently show Gov. Daniels has his work cut out for him to get re-elected. Other than to note the numbers in passing here, I’m not going to get too worked up about them one way or another. Gov. Daniels is cut in the mold of George W. Bush.
Molly Ivins wrote a book about Bush that laid out his political modus operandi. Something like the “Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush.” Basically, he did all of the nutjob stuff in the first term then spent the rest of the time moving to the center and making nice with folks. It worked for Dubya. In 2004, Bush’s poll numbers were in the crapper, and he came back from the abyss just enough to get (re?)-elected. We’ll see if Mitch can pull it off too.
With the poll showing him winning 46% to 38% in a head to head match up with Long-Thompson you have to count Daniels as vulnerable, but far from dead. What I found odd about the results though is that they suggest Daniels is slightly weaker in the Indianapolis metro area than he is state wide. Most of the SurveyUSA polls which were available to the public until a year or so ago consistently showed Daniels much stronger in Indianapolis and its collar counties than in other parts of the state.
I believe he lost any support he had in northwest Indiana based on his broken promise of moving all of Indiana to Daylight Saving Time-Central Zone. We knew the time change was bound to happen, and I personally voted for him solely on his stance on this one issue. I wanted all of Indiana to be on one time zone. It is inane that our state is 160 miles wide, and on two different time zones! (Kernan, while in favor of DST, had no stance on how it would happen; hence my vote for Mitch).
He also lost support up here due to the lease (er, sale?) of the Toll Road (people feel that all the revenues should have been used for projects up here), his inaction on the property tax problems in Lake County (until Indy recently started to gripe), etc.
Our state is not at war-like our country. The war was still “popular” enough around conservative circles three years ago to get Bush re-elected.
What does Mitch have to rally his “troops” around? I see nothing.
Mitch will have money to rally his “troops”. Fred Barnes wrote a gushing op-ed piece on Daniels which appeared earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal. I’m sure Mitch will once again tap his national contacts to feed money into his political machine. I’d guess the op-ed piece was the opening move of gearing up the money machine.
Personally I hope people here in northern Indiana remember, as Rev. AJB does, that Daniels acts as if what is good for Indianapolis is good for the rest of us. The Toll Road lease, which in effect sold the right to tax northern Indiana vehicle traffic to pay for roads for the rest of the state is the best example of that.
As a thought regarding what the future holds, I suggest examining the course of Premier Harris’s Conservative government in Ontario beginning in the middle 1990’s. That government very openly made Toronto the center piece of Ontario economic development. Alas for Indiana perhaps, but Indianapolis is nothing like the kind of financial center that Toronto is. Indianapolis has been groomed as something of a professional athletics mecca, but I cannot see how that can be of much help to any community in the state more than two hours drive from Indianapolis.
I’d like to hear some input from those of you in “Mecca” and other parts of the state. Up here we feel like the state’s step-children and hear only about what Blagodevich (sp?) is doing to screw up Illinios.
Glad I found this blog!
REV AJ
It is inane that our state is 160 miles wide, and on two different time zones!
In regards to your statement, how realistic is it that the entire state goes one time zone given the proximity to larges metro areas in both the Eastern (New Albany, Jeffersonville, etc. to Lousiville and several counties in SE Indiana to Cincinnati) and Centeral (NW Indiana to Chicago) Your idea sounds great, but I think it’s unrealistic to put this state all on one time zone. Additionally, if lets say they put the entire state on Central, I’m sure counties around Louisville and SE Indiana would petition (and probably win) the feds to be put on EDT. Additionally, you could make a very strong case for Ft. Wayne being on EDT as much of the TV market it serves is in Ohio which is on EDT.
I personally find it entertaining that 36% of Hoosiers would vote to replace Mitch Daniels with the majority of them not likely knowing anything about the opposition. I mean, I’m reading Thompson’s website and the only thing she’s against is privatization. What’s her plan for a manufacturing state in a world in which manufacturing jobs are going overseas? Etc.
We’ll see how people act when they realize their choices are put to them as “privatization or higher taxes”. We all know how popular higher property taxes were.
wl3048
I’ll give you the Cincy and Lousville counties. Still that only affects five of ninety-two counties. Most of the rest of Indiana was effectively on CDT for most of the year.
Wouldn’t nw Ohio be served by the Toledo tv market? Anyway shows would still be on at the regular time for those Buckeyes. (Shows that are on at 8 eastern start at 7 central.) The South Bend/Niles, MI area had to deal with this for years. They would just advertise “Survivor: 7:00 IN/8:00 MI.”
My point is this (and maybe I didn’t make it clear earlier): what ended up happening with the time change only made things more confusing. People still don’t know what time it is in Indiana. (Which was the primary reason for making this change!) I hoped that switching to DST would solve that issue. It didn’t. It only made things more confusing as counties petitioned to move from one zone to another.
BTW I would rather them get rid of the whole time change thing in our country. Stats show that accidents increase in the weeks following the time change, and work productivity goes down. I don’t see where we are “saving” anything…but I’ll get off my soap box now!
I guess TV broadcast times should matter somehow. I just go home and cue up whatever stuff I haven’t watched yet on the TiVo when I get time. Oh, maybe local news broadcasts are important? Other than two years in Indy, my life has been spent in areas not large enough to warrant their own news, and rarely relevant enough for mention on the other cities’ broadcasts either. Meanwhile, who watches network news anymore, anyway?
wl3048
Regarding TV signals from Fort Wayne into Ohio, our television stations kept an Eastern Time schedule for a number of years while we were not observing DST, with the result that Ohio counties in Fort Wayne’s DMA were getting the programs an hour “later” (e.g. 11:00 PM news came at midnight EDT, etc.) The television stations might complain, but Ohio didn’t seem all that important to them before EDT. Also, there was a submission to the 2005 time zone docket allegedly from the general manager of the Fox affiliate in Fort Wayne (WFFT) endorsing Central Time. I very much disagree that Fort Wayne has a strong reason to remain on Eastern. I suppose WFFT was interested in keeping sports fans awake and tuned in. But in final measure, in this era of widespread cable and internet based entertainment, terrestrial television simply matters a whole lot less than it once did.
I think the responses in this forum clearly show that Long-Thompson could run on trying to put the whole state on the geographically correct (central)time zone.Whether she could actually achieve this is up to debate. But I believe she could garner quite a few votes by pointing out Bait and Switch Mitch’s many falsehoods and downright lies throughout the whole process. I for one would be happy to supply her with some ammo.
What’s her plan for a manufacturing state in a world in which manufacturing jobs are going overseas? Etc.
We’ll see how people act when they realize their choices are put to them as “privatization or higher taxesâ€. We all know how popular higher property taxes were.
Joe, what has been Daniels plan. Oh yeah, going around grandstanding,taking credit for every job that comes up. Dumping on local Democrats at every stop. This guy has never seen a TV camera that he hasn’t tried to make love to. And let’s not forget his staged town hall meetings with his “Major Moves” button and hat wearing cronies. It seems I’ve read somewhere that there has actually been a net job loss in the last couple years.
Actually the Lord Jesus couldn’t probably reverse the flow of outgoing manufacturing jobs. It’s just pure economics when you can get away with paying people less to do the same thing somewhere else. Of course now that were on this screwed up time zone we’re seeing even less production from workers that are tired from staying up the night before.
No, the person who wants to gather the most time votes would be the one who goes for the 87/5 split. Eighty-seven central and five eastern. This allows the Cincy counties and Louisville counties there choice and the rest of us the best choice.
AJB/Paul:
In the short run I would agree with your points, however do you really think that if they did split the state into 87/Central & 5/Eastern it would be the end?? I kinda doubt it……Each county can petition the feds and make a case why they should be in a different time zone. I suspect that counties on the “outer ring” of the 5 counties that go Eastern that are in the Lousiville and Cincinnati TV markets (for example, Washington, Scott, Crawford, Jefferson, Ohio & Switzerland Counties)could make a very strong case as to why they belong on EDT as many from those counties commute to the 5 counties which would be on EDT in addtion to beeing in the Lousiville and Cincy TV markets and probably floods and floods of calls from disgruntleted citizens who hate very very early sunsets in December. So at the end of the day the state probably would become even more fragmented than it is now.
Addtionally, that’s find and dandy that a FT. Wayne TV Station Manager wanted Central time, however with it’s proximity to Ohio it’s really oriented towards EDT than CDT IMO. Addtionally, when Rep. Kuzman filed a bill (which did not come to a vote) to have the entire state on CDT (believe it was in 2003 or 2004) a number of FT. Wayne legislators remared that they were flooded with e-mails/calls from constituents who did not want to go to Central. One example was the postal union who was firmly opposed to central time due to having mail carriers having to deliver mail in the dark during Decmeber.
Further if you look at the geographic breakown of votes in the statehouse when EDT Passed, the strongest support for it was in NE Indiana. I suspect if FT. Wayne really “belonged” in Central Time, you would have not seen the widespread support for EDT in Northeast Indiana.
Oh please – politicians have been taking credit for new jobs (regardless of how much they actually did to get those jobs) since the beginning of time. I’m pretty sure Caesar did a lot of aqueduct openings, and those weren’t even his idea.
IIRC, Daniels’ idea was to outsource the lottery and give the money to Indiana schools in an effort to get students who were then required to stay in Indiana a few years. The flip side of that is you can’t expect to take most former auto workers and turn them into Ruby on Rails programmers, so it appears his plan for the present is call centers and distribution centers.
Do I think that’s the greatest plan ever? Not really. Do I see a better alternative coming out of the Indiana Democratic Party? No. That’s why I call them “The Party of No” – all they ever seem to do is holler about how bad Mitch Daniels is, rather than how much better their plans are.
They’re against privatization – well, that’s great. How else do you intend to make the budget balance – spending cuts or higher taxes? I need the answer to that question before I can even have an opinion on that part of their plan.
Right now (and we’re way before the election, so I hope it changes for all our sakes) “The Party of No” appears to be running a ticket of “Turn Back The Clocks on Indiana”, though ironically I haven’t heard any of them support the state dropping DST.
Over here in eastern Indiana, I’ve heard a LOT of anti-Mitch grousing and have seen a fair number of “Ditch Mitch” and “Not My Man” bumper stickers. CAFOs, DST, the closing of local license branches, privatizing state mental hospitals, and a general sense that Indianapolis-is-all-that-matters are the topics I’ve heard about most frequently. Whether the anti-Mitch feeling will translate into anti-Mitch (or pro-Mitch’s-opponent) votes in November 2008 is anyone’s guess, however.
Funny, those of us in Indainapolis feel like the only thing that matters to Mitch is Carmel and Geist. He won’t even live in governor’s mansion here for crying out loud.
wl3048-
Those other counties around the five “rogue” counties never made a change in the thirty plus years those counties were on EDT. They were an hour different most of the year. What would be the big difference?
The main problem is that Mitch did not understand the system to make the time change. He thought the state legislature could vote the change; and decide how it would happen. Ultimately the DOT said that each county must petition to change. He didn’t take the time to understand the system. Now the majority of the state is on a different time zone than the most populous county in the state-Lake. We are also second-class citizens to Chicago. Indy has more in common with Chicago than New York/Boston. 87/5 sounds like a much better split than what we have now.
Thanks, Mitch!
Rev. AJB:
Those counties may have never made a case be on EDT prior to most of the state going to EDT, however if they were mandated to go to Central, I strongly suspect that there would be a push to go to Eastern, especially after the wonderful early December sunsets. Also those counties would be divided with different time zones year round instead of half of the year as it used to be.
Lori: Sorry. Maybe I should have said “Carmel-and-Geist-are-all-that-matter.” :D
Rev. AJB: I think that Mitch understood how things worked. He (and the pro-DSTers in the legislature) simply chose to evade responsibility by omitting a time zone preference from the DST bill. The pro-DSTers knew the bill wouldn’t pass if a particular time zone was chosen for the entire state. They had a hard enough time ramming through the legislation as it was. It was politically expedient to let the counties take the responsibility for petitioning the DOT for a time zone preference or change. Any mess that resulted would then be the “fault” of the locals.
Is there is anything in federal law prohibiting a state legislature from using its authority to pass a law that explicity states a time zone preference for the state in question? Doug covered the issue very extensively at the time, so he’s probably the expert here–or one among many. :)
Pila-
All that I remember is that Mitch campaigned in this CST area stressing that the whole state would go on Central time. I know that’s how he pulled a lot of votes out of a traditionally democrat region.
wl3048-
Those December sunsets are bad-I’ll give you that. (My SAD kicks in heavily then). But it is nice not putting my son on the bus in the dark in the morning. Also, my folks live on the Ohio border, and complain to me about the sun not setting until after 10 pm in the summer! When you are on the eastern or western fringes of a time zone, the sun refuses to line up perfectly with man-made time lines.
My personal idea for the whole country-let’s “fall back” by a half-hour in November, and then never touch the clocks again. I lived the first 23 years of my life in the EST part of IN. I have lived in CST/CDT for the last 16 years. I still don’t like moving the clocks forward and backwards…and we still don’t know what time it is in Indiana!
The governing body of a State or a County is permitted to petition for time zone changes. So, while a county-by-county approach is an option, it’s not the only option. The State could petition for a change to the whole state or to designated portions of the state. The USDOT doesn’t have to go along with any particular proposal, but I suspect that they would give great deference to a State request and I suspect they would leap at the chance if a statewide timezone for Indiana had been requested.
Rev AJB: I remember that, also. I guess somewhere down the line–oh say around the time the DST bill was under consideration–Mitch figured it would be better not to commit to putting the entire state into one time zone.
Doug: Thanks! Kinda/sorta what I thought, but it is nice to have it confirmed. My guess is like yours: the USDOT would have gladly accepted a proposal to put the entire state of Indiana into one time zone, no matter the howling that may have come from any of the counties.
Rev AJB-
Some evidence points to the effects of SAD being exaggerated by position within a time zone, with rates being highest at the extreme western edges of time zones for a given latitude. You should count yourself lucky to be in Lake and not St. Joseph County. A Dr. Avery of the University of Washington is prominent in research in this area.
Pila-
The DOT has dealt with proposals to unify (or at least bring greater unity) the state. In the 1960’s the DOT issued an NPRM putting the whole state into Eastern, but withdrew the proposal after noisy objections from the NW and SW corners. In 1985 the General Assembly petitioned to put the Evansville area into Eastern, again an NPRM was issued and later withdrawn after objections from the area in question. Our legislature could prostrate themselves before the DOT and the DOT would still refuse to move Lake or Porter Counties into the Eastern Time Zone as long as Chicago is on Central and the counties themselves object. Heck, not even the Indiana Chamber is so deluded as to think they can bring Lake and Porter Counties into their idea of the “light”. And those two counties standing alone are 10% of the State’s population.
Markets and commerce center on cities, not the states. Thus the driving engines for setting the time line in Indiana are primarily Chicago and Indianapolis. Evansville, Fort Wayne, Louisville, South Bend and Cincinnati are possible secondary nodes. Given the continuing outward sprawl of Chicago, and the rapid growth that is starting to occur in LaPorte and Jasper counties, I see NW Indiana as the reason that the current time line is not permanent, but is only a temporary cease fire line, and as a line which can only move east, not west.
When Pulaski County repetitioned for Eastern they were focused on the now, not the five years from now. Its traditional sources of jobs for residents in Fulton and Cass Counties don’t look set to grow, and it will find more and more of its residents commuting north and west.
Paul-
Your point about Pulaski County could also be said about Elkhart County. They are focusing on the now not the future. Both of which require them to hold St. Joseph County “back” and not allow them to move forward. This was in my opinion proven by Mike Yoder’s contradicting statements of ” We need to stay united with Cass County Michigan, so we do not think you should move to the central timezone unless the entire state were to move. No problem “selling out” Cass County then was there Mike??
All of these posts concerning the Indiana TZ and DST issues under the heading ‘Poll Numbers Out for Gov. Daniels’ show what a nightmare the TZ issue is for politicians.Who would want to get involved?
As a former resident of one of the rogue 5 SE counties, I am VERY glad that the CT-statewide-crowd masquerading with their “one-state-one-time” stuff which is great as a political slogan, and not much more, aren’t in charge of the process. How convenient that everyone line up behind Central Time as the “logical” choice for the whole state as that just happens to coincide with their lifestyle and worldview. There is absolutely no reason for all of Indiana to be on one time. Much flexibility remains for large portions of the state to go either way, but this all-or-nothing stuff coming from the Central crowd is very self-serving. Besides, unless there is some groundswell for Central Time in Indy (which has yet to materialize), I don’t see any rise in Central Time. It has expanded by a grand total of two counties since this process began.
For the record–Governor Daniels wrote a letter requesting statewide hearings on the location of the time line in Indiana following the adoption of the DST bill. Remember that? While his handling of the situation can be criticized, he did exactly as the bill instructed him to do. He had no authority to request a change to Central Time; no such language existed in the bill. He had to request hearings, which he did. The DOT responded that it was highly unusual for the requests to come from that high up in the state government and stated that the case would be handled county-by-county. That wasn’t Daniels’ decision. I don’t know where this contention comes from that the DOT would be “more than happy” to consider a one-state-one-time request? I think they would be more than happy to consider it for five minutes and reject it. Besides, subsequent bills for a statewide switch to Central Time (even ones making exceptions for the SE five) never went anywhere and their sponors even pulled them this past term.
Daniels’ first State-of-the State Address said that he wanted to pass DST first “without changing anyone’s time zone.” So, at least from the first State of the State address, legislators cannot claim that they were baited and switched on the issue.
While it can be contended that the county-by-county request process was difficult and piecemeal, had the supposed overwhelming interest and support for Central Time been real, counties could have petitioned together, actually written logical and coherent requests to the DOT, and gotten the opportunity for the switch to Central some momentum. This never happened–and in fact, where the process was successful, it was largely reversed later. Were all of the reversals of CT “progress” against the popular will? David Crooks certainly doesn’t think so.
DST may ultimately hurt Mitch Daniels, but I don’t think that Eastern Time v. Central Time will. Many people hate EDT in summer and many people (like me) would hate CST in Winter. However, the “process” of bringing about the current time zone map is not the problem for Mitch.
First State of the State address? So, he got himself elected then switched gears? Nice.
And, in fact, Gov. Daniels didn’t do what SEA 127-2005 instructed him to do.
And, even when Gov. Daniels switched into “local control” mode, he couldn’t even stick with that in the case of St. Joseph County’s petition to move to central time.
It’s a lot easier to make an argument that Eastern Daylight Time is appropriate for Indiana than it is to argue that Gov. Daniels has handled this matter in anything like a consistent and straightforward manner. Given that DST only passed by arm-twisting former Representative Troy Woodruff into renegging on a promise to his constituents, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that DST wouldn’t have passed at all if the time zone issue had been discussed openly and honestly while the decision was being made on adopting Daylight Saving Time.
Nice comeback to Eastern Steve, Doug.
Steve ,your BS doesn’t fly with me. You’re just another Bait and Switch Mitch groupie. Your hero consistently lied about the time zone issue from day one.He is all about doing what the big money lobbyists want to do(EDT). He and his Repub cronies sold us out on the time zone. I went to 5 time zone meetings and people were overwhelmingly in favor of central time. That was REAL! It’s simple geography,stupid. How many time zone meetings did you attend? Yea, I thought so. Keep your phoney BS Mitch boot licking comments to yourself. It’s not a choice/preference. It’s geography unless politics and lobbyists money come in to play.