I'm a little late to this particular party, but for those of you who missed the big development of the weekend, here's the skinny:
"My focus has been, and will remain, on fulfilling my job as the congressman from Southern Indiana and continuing to address the most pressing issues our nation and great state face, like deficit reduction, health care reform, energy independence and entitlement spending," Hill said in a statement.
Republicans, meanwhile, promised to give Hill a stiff challenge in the congressional race.
Hill's decision and endorsement likely clears the path for Ellsworth to get the Senate nomination, which will be decided after the primary by the Indiana Democratic Party's 32-member central committee.
Congressman Hill is in a strong position as he pursues reelection, and his two potential challengers have yet to do, well, much of anything to articulate why they'd like to replace him.
For what it's worth, Mike Sodrel appears to be more interested in selling books than anything else, and Todd Young doesn't even have the political chops necessary to see that folding on his debate challenge with Sodrel is just the latest in a long line of bad decisions.
Remember when Ninth District Republican candidates Mike "Fifth Time's A Charm" Sodrel and Todd "I Swear Carmel Is Southern Indiana" Young pledged to debate one another every week until the primary election?
"I can assure you, when I am in D.C., I will not forget I represent people like you," Young said as the room exploded with cheers.
Young ended the night by challenging Sodrel to weekly debates until the primary elections. Sodrel quickly accepted. Details are still being worked out.
Sodrel said he was not sure about Young's experience, but he pointed out that he was loyal to President Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment.
"Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican."
That was nearly a month ago.
Since then, details have been few and far between on these supposed debates. Anyone hearing anything out there? Who is afraid of whom?
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).
As Janice Joplin pointed out, only people who have nothing to lose can be completely free. If you have no property, you have no responsibility to maintain it. You can sleep under a bridge and have no responsibility to report for work. If you don't have a family, you have no family responsibilities.
Sodrel then, for what it's worth, quickly segues into a discussion of godless atheists destroying America.
1.Communist Atheism where the State is the Church
2.Islamic Fascism where the Church is the State
3.The Judeo/Christian tradition where the Church and State are separate, but co-dependent
Of the three major faiths today, only the Judeo/Christian faith is compatible with individual liberty.
This no doubt will come as a surprise to the 1.5-2 billion Hindu and Buddhist practitioners in the world.
(Stay tuned for quotes from the part where Mike tells us that liberal atheists and Islamic extremists are working together to destroy America and the Church!)
Mike Sodrel, he of four-time loss fame, has done it again, and thus we are almost undoubtedly assured of at least five or six months of campaign trail wackiness from that second-most famous 'stache in the state.
(For what it's worth, Shella's got him beat by a landslide.)
What I find most interesting about this latest bout with delusions of grandeur is just how little fanfare has accompanied the announcement. Aside from some conservative bloggers and a few brief local and AP blurbs, Sodrel's entry into the race has been greeted with a decidedly muted reaction for a candidate who for the last few months has been heralded as a game-changer by his party's faithful.
More than anything, Sodrel's hat-tossing is indicative of a decidedly down year for candidate recruitment at the congressional level here in the state. Granted, the field may not be as bleak as last year's chuckle-fest, but we're talking about slim pickings at best. A quick recap:
2nd District: Wacky Jackie Walorski announces a bid, which will no doubt be fueled by the fringe elements that have held her aloft for years.
8th District: A bottom-of-the-barrel self-funding doctor and a motorcycle blogger round out the current crop in a district that seems to fall more in love with Congressman Brad Ellsworth every year.
9th District: Travis Whatshisface spent the summer spending every penny he brought in on pizza for his interns, Todd Young has tried so hard that you almost feel bad for how little people seem to like him, and Mike Sodrel has become a perennial punchline. Not exactly overwhelming.
If anything, the current GOP crop seems more geared toward softening the beachhead for the first post-redistricting cycle, as most of the candidates are doing little to indicate they'll have the institutional or grassroots support to raise much of a ruckus.
Don't misunderstand me: we're going to have to fight like hell to keep these seats. But the reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.
Former Republican congressman Mike Sodrel was supposed to hit the road and wind his way through 20 southern Indiana counties on Thursday, initiating his fifth Congressional campaign with the target being U.S. Rep. Baron Hill.
That's right, Millionaire Mike is back, and he's not taking the resounding electoral "no" he was handed in 2008 for an answer.
While pundits salivate over the spectacle of a fifth match-up against Congressman Baron Hill -- the good congressional representative has only registered one loss during the tough 2004 cycle -- it's worth noting that due to Hill's popularity and tireless work ethic, the real fun in this district may take place in the Republican primary.
In one corner we have the self-funding, mother-trucking behemoth that is Mike Sodrel, a man who has drifted more and more out of the mainstream as his desperate attempts have progressed from year to year. In th other, Carmelite Todd Young, a guy who despite racking up some early endorsements should view Sodrel's entry as a resounding dismissal of his candidacy by the GOP establishment.
The News and Tribune published a puff-piece a few days ago that took a look at the fledgling candidacy of Todd "I know Dan Quayle" Young, the political neophyte from Carmel Bloomington, Indiana who has pledged to run in the Ninth District next year.
The interesting thing about the interview isn't what Young says, as much as it is what he doesn't say. Namely, anything at all. Here's a sampling:
"There's no silver bullet to turn things around," he said. "But there are some common sense steps we can take."
Sounds great! Like what, Todd? The national debt, you say?
"Essentially our standards of living will go down," Young said. "We have to pay it off or it just gets passed on."
Continuing to add to the national debt will result in higher taxes which Young is opposed to. Debt is not just a financial dilemma - it's a moral issue to Young.
"We are better people than to borrow from our kids," he said.
Hm. Good point. So what are you planning to do about it?
National security is a top concern, though he wants to hear testimony before Congress from military leadership before stating his opinion on what America should do about Afghanistan.
At some point, Young believes definitive action will have to be taken to keep Iran from possessing nuclear weapons, but he said the situation hasn't escalated to that point yet.
Wait, what happened to the debt issue? Your plan to bring down the debt is military action in Iran? That doesn't seem to make much sen...
Americans should be free to shop for insurance across state lines, all businesses should be treated to the same tax breaks and medical liability reform needs to be pushed, Young said.
A combination of the three would bring more people under the health coverage umbrella, he said. But Young added the working poor could still not afford health coverage even with the plan he suggests, so Americans should accept the government will have to subsidize benefits for some, he said.
Wait, what about Iran and those nuclear weapons? And you're for subsidizing benefits? Now let me get this straight...
Young believes by touting fresh ideas and declaring his candidacy early, he'll be a formidable opponent for Hill next November.
...and, fin.
I'll give Todd some props, especially as the lowly law student I am -- he sure can spot some issues! The problem, of course, is when it comes to providing anything close to an answer to the problems facing the Ninth District, our humble Hoosier State, or the nation as a whole.
And lest you think the article left out Todd's slam-bang plans, a quick jaunt over to his faux-Obama website reveals an issue page that highlights little, and provides leadership on even less. This, for example, is the entirety of Todd's "plan" to solve not only the ballooning national debt, but any and all problems associated with the U.S. Constitution:
Make Congress deliberate before it acts. Congress will have to slow down. This means that Congress will give more careful consideration to how it spends your hard-earned tax dollars.
Empower citizens to participate. Bills will shrink, be less complicated, and contain fewer subjects, so that We the People can actually read them, too.
Stop the corrupt tit-for-tat Washington politics. Fewer bad proposals will be passed due to "log-rolling."
Restore transparency and integrity to spending. No more secret clauses or pork-barrel earmarks will be inserted into bills at the last moment.
The Courier & Press includes this blurb on the looming 2012 race in their weekly political column, noting the eyebrows beign raised by Congressman Baron Hill's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner schedule:
U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, a Seymour Democrat who represents much of Southern Indiana, long has been rumored as a potential gubernatorial candidate in 2012.
He's doing little to tamp down those rumors.
Hill reportedly has accepted an invitation to speak Nov. 7 at the Montgomery County Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner.
Northwest of Indianapolis, the rural county is well outside Hill's district. But the Jefferson-Jackson dinner circuit is critical for Democrats interested in seeking statewide office.
The piece also notes that Evansville Mayor Johnathan Weinzapfel and Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez have been making the rounds over the last year or so.
Want a short answer for why next year may not be the year of a watershed Republican Reawakening? Take a look at 9th Congressional District GOP hopeful Todd Young, who has spent the last few months spinning his wheels amidst lackluster fundraising and mixed-up messaging.
What do we find on the front page of his website? A lengthy, error-ridden piece entitled "Todd Young's Statement on Accountability," wherein young Todd fails to say anything about the aforementioned concept of accountability. What he does do is repeat the half-truths that have come to characterize the fear-mongering coming from the Republican Party.
Health care reform bad! Rationing! Old people! It's a trap!
But what do we find when we go over to the "Issues" section of this Obama-esque web experience?
Economy and Jobs
Constitution
National Security
Notice something missing there? Like, you know, Todd Young's plan to do something about skyrocketing health care costs? Rationing seems like a great rhetorical tool until the millions of Americans without health insurance point out that they are being rationed by a system of medical coverage that denies care to those who due to preexisting condition or financial status can't afford to pay for insurance.
And hence the Republican dilemma: Todd Young and his friends are (arguably) achieving some level of success by stoking the fires of discontent, but when it comes to actually articulating their viewpoint, they inevitably defer to the tired talking points that for the last decade kept substantive reform off the table.
The result? It's hard to tell at this point. Next year will more than likely not be a great year for the majority, but the Republican wave of '94 was built on the back of a concerted, well-organized messaging campaign. The Todd Young's of the world aren't looking to make a contract with America -- they're just looking to complain about it.
To describe Congressman Brad Ellsworth as a "vulnerable" incumbent is more than a stretch, which may cast doubt on the legitimacy of the National Republican Congressional Committee's list of 70 targeted races for next year.
Republicans hope an improved national political environment will help them contest many of the seats it recently lost. Of the 70 targets, 45 are freshmen and sophomores elected in the 2006 and 2008 wave elections.
House Republicans also appear confident that difficult votes on health care and energy legislation will put battle-tested members from conservative districts in trouble. There are over a dozen Blue Dog Democrats on the list, including those who have coasted to re-election in recent years.
Congressman Baron Hill is the other Hoosier on the list, although he enjoys a huge cash advantage over both his potential opponents. Todd Young, the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nod, has racked up a fair number of endorsements, but has as of yet failed to excite Republican fundraisers.
Joe Donnelly, for his part, was left off the list entirely, apparently off the radar screen after two strong showings at the ballot box.
Our friends over at Congressional Quarterly were kind enough to post their 2010 race ratings map, and the conventional wisdom seems to be pointing toward the status quo in the Hoosier state as we head toward next year.
Baron's district is the only Democratic-held area to not get the strongest rating, but that has more to do with demographics than the potential challengers lining up against him.
Democratic incumbent Hill's trouncing of Republican Sodrel likely put an end to the longest-running rivalry in congressional politics, as the two faced off in four consecutive elections.Hill won as the incumbent in 2002, Sodrel narrowly unseated him in 2004, and Hill recaptured the seat in 2006. While all of those contests were close, the 2008 race was anything but.
Congressman Hill seems to have used his twenty point margin from last year to scare off any legitimate opponents. Expect Baron to run like hell, per usual, but this contest is looking better by the day.
Oh, and for those of you keeping score at home, CQ currently projects the Democratic caucus in the House to pick up a few members next year.
It looks as if our days of being a political backwater are behind us, as President Barack Obama has announced he will make his first fundraising trip to the Hoosier State next month on behalf of four quality Indiana Democrats.
President Obama plans to cap his cap-and-gown commencement address at the University of Notre Dame later this month with an Indianapolis fundraising event for four Indiana House Democrats, according to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette's Sylvia Smith.
The president, with his sky-high approval ratings, could hardly be a better draw right now.
[...]
Among the four, only Carson's Indianapolis-based 7th District is a Democratic stronghold. Even as Obama in 2008 became the first Democrat to carry Indiana for president since 1964, Ellsworth's 8th District and Hill's 9th leaned to Republican John McCain, though by much smaller margins that those usually enjoyed by GOP presidential nominees.
Between this and the rumors that President Bill Clinton is likely to pop up in the state as well during May, it looks as if Indiana will stay on the national radar for at least a little while.
After receiving a shout-out from President Obama in last week's radio address, and with news that the aforementioned leader of the free world will be in town at his request and on his behalf next month, it appears the Ninth District's Baron Hill is flying high at the moment on the heels of his dominant electoral victory last year. With the wind at his back, Hill seems to be parlaying his close relationship with Obama into a vocal leadership position within the new Congress.
The practice was credited in the 1990s with helping to reach a balanced budget, but the law mandating it expired in 2002. Efforts to use congressional rules to enforce the same fiscal discipline have often failed.
But leaders of the 51-member Blue Dog group won a written promise from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Obama that they would push for a law mandating PAYGO in exchange for support of the $3.4 trillion budget plan for the next fiscal year.
That plan, a nonbinding resolution, cleared the House on Wednesday.
"We trust the Majority Leader and the Speaker and the President to follow through on their promises to enact statutory PAYGO," said Hill, D-9th District.
"These policies were instrumental back in those days of making sure that Congress was fiscally responsible," he said.
For those of you who have already watched President Obama's weekly radio address, you know that Indiana's own Baron Hill was on the receiving end of a PAYGO love-fest courtesy of the leader of the free world. Here's where we're at:
In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama called on Congress to pass a pay-as-you-go legislation, known as PAYGO, that would require new federal spending to be offset by budgetary cuts or tax hikes.
"We need to adhere to the basic principle that new tax or entitlement policies should be paid for," he said, asserting that PAYGO "helped transform large deficits into surpluses in the 1990s. Now we must restore that sense of fiscal discipline."
Fiscally conservative Democratic lawmakers, known as Blue Dogs, told Obama on Friday that they're working on a PAYGO plan and that they prefer to offset new spending with spending cuts elsewhere. Rep. Baron Hill of Indiana will introduce legislation next week, a Democratic aide told FOXNews.com
And they said the Blue Dogs and Obama couldn't get along...
Thank God For Basketball! Just when you think you've had more economic news than you can stand and just when you're being reminded that there is still a war on... along comes March Madness. For those who don't spend much time in the Bermuda Triangle of Basketball (IU to U of L to UK), it is hard to explain this phenom and how we momentarily disappear for some serious viewing of the tourney.
Periodically, someone will tell me our Congressman in the 9th district,Baron Hill, is "SO LIBERAL". I just have to laugh and wonder what hate-filled blow hard they've been listening to on the radio! In this last election, one of our local "Democrats" tried to tell me this, so I had to go dig up the information about our good Blue Dog Democrat, Congressman Hill. This guy was convinced that Hill was listening to his liberal friends in Indy who had lots of money rather than listening to Hoosier sensibilities.
Gov. Mitch Daniels emerged relatively unscathed from his announcement that he will refuse roughly $200 million in federal dollars for Indiana's struggling Unemployment Insurance fund, but at least one member of our congressional delegation took issue with the decision.
U.S. Rep. Baron Hill said today that Indiana should accept all the federal stimulus money available for unemployment insurance - even if it means expanding the state's current program.
"I can tell you people are hurting and they need these benefits," Hill, D-9th District, said during a visit to the Indiana Statehouse. "The letters and phone calls coming into my office are from people who are desperate and they need help."
These remarks came during Congressman Hill's visit to the General Assembly -- his second this year -- and raised at least onemustache set of eyebrows at the Statehouse.
Congressman Baron Hill (D-9th district) addressed the Indiana House of Representatives this afternoon, an appearance that mirrored one during the Electoral College meeting in the same House chamber in December. It caused some in the hallway to wonder if this is the beginning of a 2012 run for governor.
If so, Hill knows that Indiana is a tough state for a Democrat to win and that might explain part of his message. He asked lawmakers to be as bi-partisan as possible. Ask yourselves, he said about members of the opposite party, "What can I do to get along, rather than what can I do to trip them up? You'll be a lot better off."
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