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As seen here in the Indianapolis Star, an agreement has been reached on the terms of the transfer of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department to the Mayor's office from Frank Anderson. Notice how I said Frank Anderson instead of the Sheriff's office. In return for the transfer, Anderson gets a seat on the Merit Board and gets rid of General Assembly bills involving the Sheriff.
It's all about Anderson.
Just when we thought we might not have a post today, we were informed the Hammer has struck again...
Scott Newman's appointment as Indianapolis Public Safety Director was approved last night by a vote 27-1. Who was the lone dissenter?
Senator Barack Obama's (D-IL) entire presidential campaign is based on the concept of change: change from 8 years of the Bush administration and that 8-year administration immediately prior of which his opponent was a part of.
Today brings news that the Kennedy clan, including Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), and Caroline Kennedy, all endorsed Barack Obama for President.
Two thoughts: 1) since when do the Kennedys endorse in plural, and 2) does being endorsed by Ted Kennedy really make you an agent of change?
Maybe you've seen this before, but we found this comparison tool which lets you compare the tax plans of all the presidential candidates (or in the case of Hillary and Barack, the lack of tax reform proposals):
Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza, of The Fix, has been much quoted by our local Democrat blogs for his "Top 5" lists of 2008 gubernatorial elections around the country, in which Governor Daniels re-election race consistently ranks #2. With 11 states having elections this year, one might think (as the Dems are convinced) that this is a great sign for Jill Long Schellinger (our hybrid name for the Dem gubernatorial candidates as both are disappointingly unremarkable, in general and from each other).
But a quick look at the list shows something lacking:
That's right, Mitch Daniels is #2 on a list that can't even fill 5 slots. Exciting, huh?
But, then again, when you've lost as many races as the Indiana Democratic Party has lost in the past few years, it doesn't take much to get excited.
As you may divine from the Star's article this morning on Governor Daniels' property tax reform bill (House Bill 1001), the Democrat controlled House of Representatives passed many classic Democrat amendments, which GOP leader Brian Bosma says will cost Hoosier taxpayers an additional $350 million.
"We tried to help the poor. We tried to help the renters. These are people who are really left out," said House Speaker Pat Bauer (D-South Bend).
Left out because the bill was intended to address taxes paid by homeowners, something that didn't cross the minds of Democrats whose beholden voting blocs do not necessarily see immediate benefit to lower property taxes.
But the bigger news was the successful amendment by Bauer's fellow South Bend Democrat, David Niezgodski, to scale back the referenda portion of the Daniels' plan. Indiana is one of the few states that does not currently put any sort of school issues before the voting public. Daniels proposed that school construction be put towards referenda. The Niezgodski amendment exempted any building with an academic purpose from the referenda.
When asked if he thought the public was incapable of deciding for which buildings to approve construction, Niezgodski said no, but he's worried about harming education.
The real issue is that the Niezgodski amendment stripped any building that Indiana teachers' union members might have to work in.
Bauer says the buildings proposed to still be under referenda, such as stadiums, auditoriums, and natatoriums, are the ones that cause public outcry. But we wonder what percentage of total school construction costs statewide is for "non-academic structures"?
We favor spending referenda for boutique government spending--in our minds, anything that is not an essential government expense. Public Safety, courts, jails, official salaries, streets, plows, the things that differentiate civilized society from anarchy, those are essential government expenses. Public education and crystal cathedrals of education are nice to have, but society will not crumble if they did not exist. Referenda show taxpayers the direct effects on their tax bills to acquire these government amenities.
Those who oppose referenda, like Bauer and Niezgodski, know that when citizens weigh their tax bills versus government spending, they will vote to have government spend less. Beholden to their special interests, House Democrats chose the Unions over taxpayers once again.
Andre Carson's supporters have been on the local blogs lately promoting the latest domain, www.andre4indy.com, which redirects to Carson's campaign website, www.andrecarsonforcongress.com. Much like the official campaign website, andre4indy.com was registered anonymously of November 16th of last year.
Why did Andre Carson's campaign decide to pay extra money to prevent the public from knowing who bought their domain names?
There are several possibilities.1) The buyer could be a name so tainted that it would cause Andre's campaign harm; possible but unlikely. 2) The Carson Campaign was stupid enough to think that hiding their domain registry was a good idea; also possible, but not likely. 3) Andre's handlers needed to put the pieces of his campaign together before Andre himself could publicly acknowledge he was a candidate; this is the most likely.
State Rep. John Elrod, who is Carson's special election opponent, seemed to force the Carson camp's hand on setting Andre up for succession. For much of 2007, no Democrat would even commit to running for the 7th District seat out of "Respect for Julia." However, the GOP had no such bounds, and Elrod announced his candidacy for the seat, directly to take on Julia Carson herself, on November 15th. Elrod cited the need for a full-time Congressman, after months of stories about Julia being unable to attend House sessions with what staff claimed was a "leg infection." At the time of Elrod's announcement, the Carson camp had lost control of the media story.
But the Carson camp acted quickly. Andy Jacobs, the former Congressman whose disdain for serving in the then-new Democratic minority allowed Julia Carson to run for Congress in 1996, released a statement that afternoon that in the event Julia would retire, Jacobs would back Andre for the congressional seat. It was disturbing how quick Jacobs turned the news to Carson camp.
The next day, November 16th, the Indianapolis Star then chose to combine the two stories, with the Jacobs endorsement receiving top billing over the Elrod announcement; headline: "Jacobs backs another Carson." Thus, Jacobs effectively blunted Elrod's announcement from receiving the headline. In addition, the domain names www.andrecarsonforcongress.com, www.andrecarsonforcongress.org, and www.andre4indy.com were also registered that day by an anonymous registrant.
Two days after the Elrod announcement, late Saturday, November 17th, Julia Carson herself released a statement that she was suffering from terminal lung cancer. Julia's statement stated the diagnosis was recent, but her Church pastor contradicted that fact in interviews the next day, stating the diagnosis came about a year earlier. The next business day, Monday, November 19th, Carson's congressional office announced she would not seek re-election.
Such an atmosphere was created that it would look callous to announce a congressional candidacy while Julia Carson was near death. Only Marion County Treasurer Mike Rodman had announced prior to this time that he would seek the seat, and then only if Julia did not run. No major candidates announced until after Carson's death on December 15th and subsequent funeral on December 22nd. The service, which included over two dozen speakers, was mostly respectful, but Congresswomen Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and Stephanie Tubbs Jones (Congressional Black Caucus members from Detroit, Michigan, and Cleveland, Ohio, respectively) as well as a Democrat ward chairwoman used their speeches to promote Andre Carson for congress.
The complete staging of the events surrounding the 7th District vacancy and candidate selection have understandably left many Democrats disgusted and underwhelmed. Many have likened the situation to the death and funeral of the late U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), where the displays of blatant politicking during funeral speeches led to the election of Republican Norm Coleman in 2002. There is a striking difference though. Wellstone's funeral occurred days before the general election, open to all voters. The Carson funeral occurred a similar amount of time before the Democratic Caucus to choose the special election nominee. While the Wellstone event was an appeal to all voters, the Carson event was directed at Democrats.
Each event irritated portions of voters at which the messages were directed, which bodes trouble for Andre. Almost 50% of Democrat caucus-goers chose to vote for someone not named Andre Carson. Several of their choices will be running in the primary occurring in May, and one thing we know in politics is that if you cannot beat your competitor within your own party, you could always elect the other party's guy and then beat him. The Democrats also moronically scheduled their primary slating for a few weeks prior to the Special Election, meaning more news of people voting for someone not named Andre Carson will happen before Carson goes before all voters.
The more we know, the more we understand why Andre's supporters started early and why the DCCC is wisely spending money to ensure Andre doesn't suffer a very damaging special election loss.
CQ Politics reports today on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC, the campaign arm of U.S. House Democrats) and its efforts to expand its majority in the House in 2008. They announced the 2008 version of its "Red to Blue" program, which specifically sends extra cash to Republican congressional Districts that the Dems want to take over. There were 30 such districts targeted in 2006, and here are the ten for 2008:
That's right! The Dems have the 7th in their list of Districts they want to turn from "Red to Blue." Their defense is that it is a close district that they cannot afford to lose. CQ Politics provided the 2004 presidential baselines:
So why are the Dems sending extra money from a fund to win Republican congressional districts into a Democrat held district that John Kerry won by 17 points? If your read the CQ Politics article, the decisions were made based on the candidates recruited (ex. The Dem candidate in CA-04, Charlie Brown, only lost to Doolittle by 3 points in 2006). In other words, when looking at the slated candidate in the 7th, the DCCC felt Andre Carson needs a bit of extra help in order to keep the seat in Democrat hands.
Not exactly a sparkling endorsement less than a week into your first contested race...
Hat Tip to Hoosier Access:
