Don't worry, folks. The Great Porn Dragon won't sleep easy tonight, because everyone's favorite Nazi-sympathizer is back on the case. As it turns out, this may be the only case he works on for a while.
Zirkle has been interested in the 2nd District seat for years. This is his fourth run for Congress.
He finished third in a three-person race for the Republican nomination in 2008 and second in two-person races for the nomination in 2006 and 2004.
Zirkle's law license was suspended for at least two years in August after a judge found him guilty of professional misconduct. He said he has been living in Lake County, which is not in the 2nd District, since closing his South Bend law office last summer.
As he has in the past, Zirkle said his platform will be based on the belief that Congress needs to crack down on pornography to make this a better nation.
State Rep. Jackie Walorski seized on Zirkle's candidacy as evidence that yes, indeed, there are people more out of touch with mainstream Hoosiers than her.
Governor Joe Kernan is a good man, and I refuse to pass up an opportunity to highlight a story of his going ons. Here's the latest:
WSBT-TV reports that Kernan and his wife Maggie on Monday visited the sites of two Hanoi prisons where he was held after his Navy reconnaissance plane was shot down in 1972.
Kernan spent most of his time as a POW in a prison once dubbed "The Zoo."
He became emotional during a visit to the site of that prison as he recalled the moment when he realized his family knew he was still alive after his plane was shot down.
Aside from the "why" -- as in why he retired -- and ignoring the "who" -- that would be who will replace him -- the "what" of Senator Evan Bayh's decision to step down is probably going to be the most interesting to watch, at least in terms of Bayh's own future plans.
The "what," of course, representing the question as to what he's planning on doing with the over $12 million in campaign funds he's currently sitting on.
Sylvia A. Smith of Journal Gazette fame turns her attention to the problem:
"He's a young man," [Democratic strategist Tad] Devine said of Bayh, who is 54. "He may want to do things politically in the future, whether it's run for governor or pursue another office or be involved in politics in some meaningful way where resources like that could make an enormous difference. Preserving it is a great option."
But even if he chooses that option, Devine said, Bayh could make substantial donations to Indiana congressional and state legislative candidates while still keeping at least $10 million in his campaign kitty.
"One of the real downsides to Evan Bayh not being at the top of the ballot this year is the impact it's likely to have on other races in Indiana. I know it's a very close legislative race there, for example. Not having his vote-drawing ability at the top of the ticket could affect these down-ballot races.
"So he may decide he wants to be involved in helping other Indiana Democrats win election. That's his political base. It would be a smart thing to nurture it," he said.
Bayh can't donate to the eventual candidate, but he could make a sizable contribution to the Indiana Democratic Party, the DSCC, or some other organization.
The latest, via all-around good guy Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post.
Indiana Rep. Brad Ellsworth has decided to seek the seat being vacated by Sen. Evan Bayh and will announce his intentions in a statement to be released shortly, according to a source briefed on the matter.
Ellsworth emerged as the favored candidate of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the White House in the immediate aftermath of Bayh's stunning decision that he would not seek a third term.
Handsome, telegenic and with the sort of voting record during his two terms in the House that makes him a viable statewide candidate in conservative-minded Indiana, Ellsworth is rightly seen as a recruiting coup for a DSCC that was caught off guard by Bayh's decision (as was the rest of the Democratic political world) and had been badly bruised and battered by retirements and the special election victory of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) in recent weeks.
If friend-of-the-site Brian Howey is to be believed, rumored senate contender Congressman Brad Ellsworth is set to throw his hat into the ring later today, setting up a congressional run by State Rep. Trent Van Haaften.
Informed and reliable sources are telling Howey Politics Indiana that U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth will likely declare his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat today, and that State Rep. Trent Van Haaften of Mount Vernon is preparing to file for the 8th CD in Ellsworth's place. St. Joseph County Democratic Chairman Butch Morgan told HPI, "If he makes his final decsion to do it shortly, there will be some things he'll need to do and others will need to do as far as filing for Congress. I think he'll withdraw from runing for Congress and another person will file." Asked if it had to happen by noon Friday, as HPI reported on Wednesday, Morgan said, "I think so." He identified Van Haaften as the likely successor to Ellsworth.
It appears we'll know sooner rather than later if at least one rumored Senate candidate is going to take the plunge. Eighth District Congressman Brad Ellsworth says he'll have an answer within a week.
Ellsworth said Tuesday he expects to decide within about a week whether to actively seek the nomination.
"I don't want to hold it to exactly a week, but I wouldn't think that kind of stuff takes much longer than that, and I know that (Indiana Democrats) are going to want to find somebody to get busy running," said Ellsworth, who is in his second two-year term in Congress.
Speaking outside the Sullivan County Courthouse after a meeting with constituents, Ellsworth said he had taken several calls from Indiana Democratic leaders since Bayh announced on Monday he would not seek another term.
If either Hill or Ellsworth throws their hat into the ring, expect the discussion to quickly turn to possible replacements for both on the November ballot.
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. says he will seek the Democratic nod to replace U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh on the November ballot.
He told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville on Tuesday that it's time for a fresh face and he would seek to be chosen by the state Democratic Party to be the one who replaces Bayh on the ballot. Bayh announced Monday that he was not seeking a third term this year.
Terry Burns at Marion County Voter Registration reports that just 2 signatures were certified for Tamyra d'Ippolito in the 7th Congressional district, 498 short of the requirement.
The noon deadline has passed and her name will not appear on the ballot. Democrats are now free to hand pick a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat now held by the retiring Evan Bayh.
With today's news that Senator Evan Bayh will not seek reelection, the next major development in the race for this now-open senate seat will almost certainly be the selection of a candidate by the Indiana Democratic Party's State Central Committee.
As mentioned in my post below, the failure of any candidate to submit the state-mandated 4,500 signatures triggers a Committee caucus, although the timeline for such an event will likely not be announced until Friday's certification deadline. At that point, the Indiana Democratic Party would have until June 30th to fill the ballot vacancy.
I'll leave the wild speculation to the comments, but already the rumor-mill is working overtime. Two relevant stories to jumpstart the discussion:
"I'm sure Baron Hill will be among several Democrats who will take a look at the race," said Mike Jones, the Democrats' 9th District chairman and a member of the party's state central committee.
Hill is out of the country on a week-long trip military-hosted trip. At the request of the military and because of security concerns, Hill's office said it cannot disclose the trip itinerary.
Hill's spokeswoman, Katie Moreau, said Monday that she has no way of reaching the congressman.
"We honestly never spoke about this before he left," she said.
"Evan Bayh has served the people of Indiana with integrity and Hoosier common sense for over two decades. His time in the US Senate will be marked by his moderate approach and willingness to reach across the aisle to tackle our nation's most pressing problems. I appreciate his service to our people and state. He will be missed."
"I heard about the news during my annual Open Door Listening Tour this morning, and I appreciate the support of those Hoosiers who have already encouraged me to run for Senator Bayh's seat. The next step will be taking a few days to talk to my wife and to folks in Indiana about where I can best serve our state. In the meanwhile, I will continue to travel throughout the 8th District this week listening to Hoosiers about the challenges they face and their ideas for getting our economy back on track."
In prepared remarks, Bayh, 54, cited excessive partisanship that makes progress on public policy difficult to achieve as the motivation for his decision.
"After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so in Congress has waned," he said.
"My decision was not motivated by political concern," he added. "Even in the current challenging environment, I am confident in my prospects for re-election."
Bayh had never lost an election, from his first win in 1986 as secretary of state, his wins for governor in 1988 and 1992 and his election to the U.S. Senate in 1998 and 2004.
"But running for the sake of winning an election, just to remain in public office, is not good enough," Bayh said. "And it has never been what motivates me. At this time I simply believe I can best contribute to society in another way: creating jobs by helping grow a business, helping guide an institution of higher learning or helping run a worthy charitable endeavor."
Update: To provide a short answer to the question of the day -- no, there is little chance of anyone directly qualifying for the ballot per the 4,500 signature requirement. The result of this will be a vote by the State Central Committee as to a replacement on the ballot. No information is available yet as to a timeline for such things.
For those of you who have been tracking the ever-changing, ever-controversial path of the General Assembly's attempt at ethics reform, this Associated Press blurb seems to indicate that we're finally within view of that light at the end of the legislative tunnel.
The House and Senate each passed bills on the issue, and the Senate Rules Committee will take up the House bill on Monday.
The bill would prohibit lawmakers from becoming lobbyists for one year after their terms expire, regardless of whether they complete the term. It also would require lobbyists to report gifts worth $50 or more, including meals, drinks and tickets to events. The current threshold is $100.
For what it's worth, ethics stalwarts such as State Rep. John Day of Indianapolis have worked tirelessly (and at times, seemingly hopelessly) on this issue for years. They won't get the credit they deserve should a bill pass, but they have been instrumental in keeping this topic alive when public attention wasn't so squarely fixated on the General Assembly.
Tip o' the hat to Daily Activist in the comments. Research 2000, polling for DailyKos:
MoE 4%, 02/08-10
Bayh (D) 55
Coats (R) 35
Bayh (D) 53
Hostettler (R) 37
Not exactly encouraging for the Republican bigwigs who have been claiming for the last week that Coats has the statewide support to mount more of a challenge than the Land of Misfit Toys currently making up the field.
In fact, at his first public appearance since announcing his Senate run -- a lunchtime stop Downtown at Shapiro's Delicatessen -- the first table Coats greeted brought up the video.
Shortly after he introduced himself to Beverly Heid, she pounced.
"When he shook my hand, I told him, 'You need to be from Indiana,' and he told me, 'I just got a house in Indianapolis,' " said Heid, 71, who lives on the Southside. She sat at a table behind Coats as he ate one of Shapiro's meatloaf specials.
"Then I said, 'They're talking in the paper a lot about Virginia and North Carolina and what you said.' He didn't say anything."
"It's not that I don't like (Coats), but I feel he's been out of touch with what's going on in Indiana," she said Wednesday. "He hasn't been active in Indiana politics."
It is not an unusual sentiment among the lions of the Republican Party locally, the longtime party activists who knew and supported the 66-year-old Coats in earlier campaigns.
Some of the most prominent veteran GOP honchos in Vanderburgh, Warrick, Posey and Gibson counties - a group political analysts say should be most receptive to a Coats comeback - are noncommittal or outright opposed.
And for the most part, these are Republicans being interviewed. I'm hearing that the Indiana Republican Party isn't exactly going the distance for Coats, either, reflecting a bitterness at a D.C. candidate being shoved down their throats.
As the second major snowstorm of recent weeks wallops Washington, at least one Congressman has made it clear he's not surrendering to Mother Nature quite that easily.
On the House side there was even less activity. Many offices had three days worth of newspapers stacked at the front door. A lone light in a long hallway, Representative Baron Hill's (D-IN) office had the door open. Inside the office Hill and his Chief of Staff John Zody were wrapping up some business. Zody said that most staffers were working from home and that phone calls to the DC office were being forwarded to Hill's district offices in Indiana.
Asked if the weather was hurting their ability to do the job, Zody said the Congressman was tapping in to the values of his home district, "We're in the southern part of the state so we don't get as much snow, but we're of pioneer heritage so we can handle it."
Carmel-based Republican Todd Young hasn't exactly been having the best time as of late. His lackluster fundraising and anemic support resurrected a repeatedly beaten dead horse in Mike Sodrel, and since then it's been one thing after another for the guy.
But as they say, the only thing worse than non-legal troubles is, well, legal troubles. And troubles he seems to have.
That call, apparently received somewhere in Southern Indiana, isn't just poorly executed -- it's possibly illegal.
You see, litigation has been ongoing for four years now as to whether political calls fall under the statewide ban on robo-calls passed in 1988. Rather than wait for a final judgment on this point, all three political parties in Indiana agreed to not use the questionable tactics in the upcoming cycle.
As you can hear above, Young apparently get the memo.
Making the whole situation even more sticky is the fact that the Attorney General of this fine state -- who would be heading up any enforcement of the law against Todd -- is a big-time Young for Congress campaign supporter. As my good friend Scott Fluhr notes:
It will be interesting to see what comes of this, as Zoeller is not only one of the statewide elected officials to endorse Todd Young, but someone that has done more fundraisers for him and done more to help his campaign than virtually anyone else that isn't related to his wife (and thus Dan Quayle).
Dan Coats has a spokesperson working the phones, now. And the results are already hilarious:
A spokesman said more than 100 people are gathering signatures to get Coats on the Republican primary ballot, and thousands have been collected so far.
"It has been very inspiring and encouraging, particularly on such a short time frame," said Kevin Kellems, Coats' spokesman.
Inspiring?
How in the world is bringing folks in from Kentucky and paying poor college kids to collect signatures inspiring?
The new Coats strategy: If you can't beat 'em... dump a bunch of D.C. money into the state and hope for the best.
Ok, sit down while we try to explain this. It's getting complicated.
Dan Coats, the District of Columbia lobbyist who has lived in Virginia for ten years, but who really wants to be a North Carolinian, and was recruited by a Texan, is now hiring Kentuckians to get signatures from Hoosiers to get on the ballot in Indiana. Whew.
If ever you were going to explain to someone the beauty of America's democratic process, a quick examination of the unemployment insurance crisis in Indiana would probably do the trick. To recap, Indiana was faced with a stunning amount of debt last year due to our bankrupt unemployment insurance program. To address this issue, the General Assembly -- with bipartisan support -- passed a "fix" involving a modest tax increase on businesses. Governor Mitch Daniels then signed the bill into law.
Fast-forward to this week, where those very same Republicans are confronted not with a budgetary crisis, but something far more sinister: an election year.
Republican lawmakers say the recession has lasted longer and cut deeper than anticipated, putting other states in the same predicament and raising the possibility of federal action. Therefore, they say, the state should delay the tax hike by at least a year.
Gov. Mitch Daniels said that allowing the new rates to take effect would be a job killer. He has lobbied the General Assembly for a one-year delay to see if Congress acts.
"If (lawmakers) want to really be helpful, that would be the single biggest thing they can do" to protect Hoosier jobs, Daniels said.
This coming from the same people who want to set in stone a series of tax caps based on the theory that revenue fluctuations would never necessitate a restructuring of our tax base.
Democrats, for their part, are set to unveil a jobs plan in the coming days. Jobs also being incredibly important when it comes to protecting Hoosier jobs.
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