Polis Politics

Commentary: ESPN's Yankee Stadium Tribute Uncalled For

Today is Opening Day for Major League Baseball. We are neither Yankees nor Red Sox fans, but with ESPN being based in Connecticut, and the two teams being of good fortunes over the past decade, we understand the channel's propensity to lavish coverage upon the two teams.

But this has gone too far.

Last week, ESPN's SportsCenter began airing a daily segment honoring Yankee Stadium's final season with a daily "This day in Yankee Stadium history" segment called "Honoring the House that Ruth built."

Yankee Stadium has a long history, and the Yankees do have the most World Series Championships, and as a result, one of America's largest fan bases. But this is the first time SportsCenter has run a tribute to a Stadium! And it screams of unequal treatment for a media outlet.

Shea Stadium is also closing its doors this year, and it also has a long history. Joe Namath played there with the Jets. The Beatles held their most famous concert there. Where's the Tribute?

Here in Indianapolis, the RCA Dome closed its doors. It hosted probably the best AFC Championship game in 20 years in 2007. It also hosted one of the greatest NCAA Basketball Championship games we can remember between Arizona and Kentucky in 1998. Where was that Tribute?

New York always has been accused of a media bias, and it shows many times in sports. The Yankees' playoff games are always shown in prime time despite the fact more compelling games may be being played. In the NFL, The Dallas Cowboys, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers all have larger national fan bases than New York's Giants and Jets. Three Rivers Stadium received no such tribute when it closed its doors, despite being the site of many memorable moments, including the Immaculate Reception. Texas Stadium is in its final year for the Cowboys, and it remains to be seen what tribute will be given.

Small markets have disadvantages already competing in sports. Athletes are given endorsement bonuses for signing contracts in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. ESPN worship of a select few sports teams only furthers this problem. We hope that ESPN does not make the same mistake next year when Fenway Park closes shop.

WISH-TV files Copyright Complaint against DCCC

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is the campaign arm for U.S. House Democrats, and one of their top priorities is seeing that Andre Carson is elected in the upcoming special election. They got him a Washington, DC, campaign team; a fancy new web site; and some large DC money. But their latest trick may have gone too far.

Last week, a YouTube video surfaced online, essentially a scary attack adagainst Republican Jon Elrod, even containing the "paid for by DCCC" style disclaimer at the end. It was prominently featured on the DCCC's YouTube Channel (View this photo). The problem is that all the footage was obtained from Indianapolis area news broadcasts.

Normally we would show you the video, but as you can see below, the video has been removed by YouTube, stating that "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by LIN Television Corporation." LIN is the parent company of WISH-TV. As you might see on the DCCCLive page, WISH's Jim Shella was featured prominently, and apparently without permission.

The result is just amazing to think about. Our local media accused the campaign arm of Nancy Pelosi, while working for Andre Carson, of plagiarism, and YouTube agreed.

Just more evidence the Dems will stop at nothing to smear Jon Elrod and force Andre into office.

Andre Carson's campaign a calculated timeline

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.

2008 Anti-Prediction #1: U.S. House

First, we would like to say that we are  glad to be back after a holiday week of driving around the Midwest.

Second, we will be honest with you and say that we are not ones for making bold predictions, like many of our fellow weblogs. We do, however, take great joy in tearing those other predictions apart. We call them "anti-predictions," and we will start with our friends over at Hoosier Access, where Scott Fluhr predicts that "The Republicans will lose seats in the Senate and in the House."

Scott, we are too concerned about the U.S. Senate. The GOP has a lot of turf to defend, and their real only pickup opportunity is Mary Landrieu in Louisiana. But the U.S. House, we have a difficult time seeing that one going Democrat. Here's why:

• Anti-Incumbency lives... We live in Indianapolis, and we don't need to lecture anyone on ant-incumbency. But it isn't just local. While Bush won a second term in 2004 and the GOP gained seats in the House that year (and the Senate), 2005 brought us the first winds of anti-incumbency, where many sitting Democrat mayors around the country lost in their primaries or all-open elections. In 2006, that sentiment hit the congressional elections, and it continued in the 2007 gubernatorial and municipal elections. It took out some very strong GOP incumbents in 2006 (NH-1's Jeb Bradley, PA-4's Melissa Hart, and IA-2's Jim Leach) based solely on anti-incumbency, including anti-Bush anti-incumbency. But now Democrats are the incumbents, and they ain't too popular either. Just as Dems took out unpopular incumbents such as Indiana's John Hostetler and North Carolina's Charles Taylor (who lost to Heath Shuler), the GOP can easily do the same this year.
• ...But not everywhere. The Democrats' built much of their 31-seat gain on big nights in states with large congressional delegations, such as Indiana, New York, and Pennsylvania, picking up ten seats in those states. But in other states where it would make sense that Dems would have large gains--California, Michigan, and Ohio-- they only got two. The California and Ohio losses were Representatives involved in the Abramoff Scandal. Michigan was very disappointing, where Democrats still only had six out of fifteen seats and could not pick up the seat of former Representative and liberal stalwart David Bonior. The fact that Democrats did not have great nights everywhere indicates they picked off low-hanging fruit, and further gains will require much more work.
• The 2006 Democrat agenda was based on running against something... Besides anti-Bush anti-incumbency,the Democrat campaign was largely hinged on ethics, namely the Abramoff scandal and the Foley page scandal. Look at the list of Dem Pickups due to scandal alone: AZ-5 (J.D. Hayworth), CA-11 (Richard Pombo), FL-16 (Mark Foley), KS-2 (Jim Ryun), NH-2 (Charles Bass), OH-18 (Bob Ney), PA-10 (Don Sherwood), and TX-22 (Tom Delay). Of those Democrats who won in those seats, several should end up being Michael Patrick Flanagan's, the one-term Republican who defeated the scandal ridden Dan Rosthenkowski in Chicago in 1994.
• ...But ran on the same old agenda. The grand visions of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were nothing new to political observers: raise the minimum wage, expand health care entitlements, and promise free college tuition to more students. They also ran in opposition to the Iraq War and to GOP earmarks and pork. After two years, what is the record? Increasing the minimum wage, the SCHIP debacle, and earnest opposition to Iraq. While they were swept in on a sea of change, the Pelosi House has delivered little. In anti-incumbent America, that's not good.
• It's the end of a redistricting cycle, not the beginning. We are still four years away from congressional elections in new districts. That means that all those gains Dems made in GOP leaning districts are still in GOP territory. And it's a presidential election year, with the Democratic nominee not likely to be a moderate. Pelosi will be on defense in many districts.

The on e thing in the Democrats' favor is GOP retirements. Already, we have seen formerly high ranking GOP leaders announce they will retire than continue in the minority (former Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, former House Conference Chair Deborah Pryce of Ohio, former House Appropriations "cardinal" Ralph Regula of Ohio).

But for the Dems to gain seats, they will have to pick up more of those retirements than they lose in the heavy GOP districts they won in 2006 (Foley, DeLay, Ney, Hart, etc.). We do not see that happening. While it is likely the Dems will still control the House in 2009, the 2008 elections are not very likely to expand their lead.

Commentary: Time for Ballard to implement a new budgeting system

Abdul Hakim Shabazz on his Indiana Barrister blog has a great fact check on another lame duck proposal before the City County Council. Proposal 532 is set increase the IMPD budget by $7.1 million to bay for the following new items:

• Salaries, Equipment, and Supplies for the new 2007 recruiting class.
• the new Police contract
• "legal and officer manning studies"
• radio upgrades
• vehicle radio modems

How much of that $7.1 million is going to each of these items? Council does not tell us. Why? Because they don't have to.

We have heard Mayor-Elect Greg Ballard talk time and time again about "opening up the budget" because too much government spending is approved through "lump sum" line items. During the mayoral campaign, the prime example of this practice was the infamous Line Item 390, the budget's general line item for "Other Services and Charges." Ballard railed against the $60 million miscellaneous line item. Peterson used Ballard's plea against him in negative attacks. Only through those ads did the public learn that this miscellaneous line item contained the funding for Emergency 9-1-1, garbage collection, and child support enforcement contracts.

Peterson was only taking advantage of Marion County's local budgeting rules. If Ballard is going to truly "open up the budget" he needs to overhaul the way Indianapolis and Marion County approves budgets. Currently the budget is arbitrarily divided into line items, and the only detail required to be specified are salaries, supplies, and capital spending. Anything else may be thrown into "other services" or inter-agency charges.

If Ballard is truly going to cut spending and retain public trust, he needs to gut the current budget format and specify what public dollars are being spent on. More detail and sunshine are essential to exposing our bloated government, the sole cause of property tax increases. We don't know if Ballard needs state legislative approval or not, but the way Indianapolis currently budgets serves politicians, not taxpayers.

Mayor-Elect Ballard: reform the budgeting process if you truly want to "open up the budget."

You've reached the Peterson Residence. Please leave a message.

As you saw earlier, Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson has a new ad that we transcribed earlier. In the spot, Peterson solicits input from the public on the tax crisis:

"I welcome your questions and your suggestions. To learn more, please log on to our website or call, because we need everyone working together to fix this property tax mess once and for all. Thank you for your help."

So, how important is your input to Peterson? The number the ad gives to call is an automated messaging service! You don't even get a live person!

Things must be so bad, Bart has to protect his staff from the public...

Review: Peterson Ad #4, "Tax"

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson recently released his latest campaign ad, a minute long spot on the property tax crisis. The following is a Transcript with our thoughts

"This summer’s property tax bills were devastating; getting your bill and discovering 50, 100, even 200% increases, some even more. "

Pretty accurate statement as to how bad he and county government messed things up...

"I understand people’s anger because I can feel it, and I hear it everywhere I go. I’ve heard the nightmares that some of our neighbors and seniors face."

The anger Bart speaks of is that his taxing ways have cost him guaranteed re-election to a third term.

"We took action. By banding together we were able to get the state to force a new reassessment to correct what we know is wrong."

What action is Bart referring to? His constant begging for Governor Daniels to bail him out of this crisis, while at the same time blaming him for everything that caused it?

"But this problem can‘t be fixed simply  by moving numbers. The only solution lies in cutting government and finishing what we started, because people who have done so much deserve so much better. They deserve action."

The people of Indianapolis do deserve action. The solution does lie in cutting government spending. But has Bart done anything to take action or cut spending. Nope, and Nope.

"I welcome your questions and your suggestions. To learn more, please log on to our website or call, because we need everyone working together to fix this property tax mess once and for all. Thank you for your help."

Translation: thank you all for paying your taxes to cover my spending. Give me some ideas, because I have none. and please vote for me.

Once again, I think this ad misses the mark, this would have been a boring 30 second add, but it is almost intolerable at a full minute. Peterson once again does an excellent job pointing out his weaknesses and saying little to comfort voters. We don't buy it, and we believe voters don't either.

Indianapolis City computers used to edit "Ku Klux Klan" Wikipedia Article

Hat Tip to Taking Down Words for their piece today on WikiScanner, a new website which allows you to search who is editing Articles on Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia. Any Internet user can edit articles on Wikipedia, either through an account or anonymously, although when editing anonymously, your IP address is logged.

So using this new tool, we at Polis Politics took a look to see what the people of Indianapolis were editing on Wikipedia. The search tool lists the addresses by IP provider, mostly Comcast and AT&T. Some of the IP addresses are associated to certain businesses. For example, someone at Ice Miller enjoys editing the IRL and IndyCar Articles, while others at Eli Lilly enjoy making edits to Junior Seau and the "List of Notable people from the Halifax Regional Municipality."

However, as a taxpayer, we are saddened to note that our tax dollars are also being spent in these endeavors, right here in Marion County. IP addresses owned by the City of Indianapolis at 200 East Washington Street have made 571 different edits according to this database in the past 24 months. Articles edited include the following subjects:

• Adam West and the Batman TV series
• "A Prairie Home Companion" and Garrison Keillor
• The Canadian Football League (CFL) and the 1970s World Football League (WFL)
• Warner Brothers cartoons Elmer Fudd and Foghorn Leghorn
• Comics Funky Winkerbean and Dennis the Menace
• The TV show "Hee Haw"
• Figure Skaters Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen
• The Ku Klux Klan

Good to see our tax dollars at work!

The Clerk and The Chicken

No, we are not talking about Beth White. We are actually referring to Clerk of the CIty-County Council Jean Ann Milharcic. My friend downtown sent me this photo taken yesterday, apparently celebrating the Clerk's birthday with some humor at the expense of Indianapolis' anti-tax chicken.

Hope they didn't use government paper or government color printers on this one...

   

UPDATE: 2006 Election Results found on IndyGov

Yesterday, we reported on the inconsistent online publishing of elections results by Marion County Clerk Beth White. Among our criticisms were that several years of elections data are missing online and that the results were not all in one place.

Well, we are happy to report that we have now found the results of the 2006 General Election online on the IndyGov website (although not on White's website). We were able to find the results using several back-door links from the IndyGov homepage (Using the top toolbar, "Voting" can be found under "Services," and there one can click on "Current Election Results" where the 2006 General results pop up...whew!). For your convenience, instead of traveling through the online bureaucratic maze, you can click here.

Since we had a primary in May (White might remember that one), we do not consider the 2006 General Election to be "current." But nonetheless, we are pleased they are available online. However, this now brings the total of different places between White's website and the IndyGov site where our Marion County election results are stashed to four.

If we didn't know any better, we might be convinced Cousin Eddie was consulted on website service placement.