It is not enough to say Indiana's Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Fund is insolvent, as the governor and his Department of Workforce Development (DWD) have and will deflect this by saying 1.) This is a recession and 2.) But Michigan, California, Ohio, New York and Illinois' funds are much worse than ours! Those states' funds are worse, but those states are also much more heavily populated than ours.
No, the best way to look at DWD's UI problem (and having one of the worst UI programs in the country) is by digging into the truths that have not been appearing in the media and have not been sent-out in press releases by the governor's press representatives at DWD and elsewhere. Most of the information below is open for public inspection (after all, as some of the "Lead Team" at DWD forget, they are a public agency).
I would, therefore, like to put some of the pieces together for whomever would like to see.
1). Indiana was the third state to have an insolvent Trust Fund (Michigan's went insolvent in 2007, South Carolina's right before ours) during the current recession (we went insolvent in Nov. 2008). Next year, Indiana (along with SC) will have an increased federal UI tax for employers, who will have to pay $21 more/per employee (undoubtedly causing more lay-offs/terminations).
2). How did IN's Trust Fund get so low so fast? Since 2000, as is known by now, benefits were increased (our weekly amount is still not very high at $390/week, although Daniels said it was "Rolls Royce" high) and taxes on businesses were severely reduced. In 2005, Indiana had a Trust Fund balance of $600,000,000 or so; by November 2008, Indiana's fund was bankrupt, and currently, the federal government is bailing-out Indiana with $1.7 Billion (and expected to be over $2 Billion by the end of the year).
Did the recession cause this massive loss of money? Oh, surely it was a major factor; but, incompetence and corruption at DWD have also drained the fund of hundreds of millions from the fund with no oversight by Daniels at all. In 2008, DWD was responsible for OVER-paying $261 Million to claimants who did not deserve to be paid UI benefits (an error rate of 26% of the total amount of benefits for all of 2008). This amount was the highest in the US and $150 Million more than the next closest state, New York.
Click on "Agency Responsible Overpayment by cause - all states".
2009's numbers should be out soon, and I can guarantee the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Trust Fund due to incompetence and negligence at DWD will be to blame.
The people running DWD (none of whom have been with DWD more than 4 years and none of whom worked their way up, but were instead appointed by the governor) have been warned numerous times of problems by inside staff (who DO have UI experience), the US Department of Labor who oversees DWD, the US DOL's Inspector General who did an investigation of ethics problems, the Indiana State Board of Accounts who did an audit last year, and the Indiana Inspector General's office who completed an investigation in December last year and cited many ethics and accounting problems.
3). Indiana's DWD is being sued by the ACLU of Indiana because of poor UI Appeals backlogs (people waiting months for an appealed hearing). The backlogs are certainly caused because the initial-level "adjudication" is THE WORST in the country, and has been among the worst in the last 3 or 4 years. In the first quarter 2010, Indiana had the worst adjudication quality scores for separation cases (firings, voluntary quits, etc.) and non-separation cases (work searches, vacation pay, pensions, etc.). Out of 100 randomly-sampled issues, Indiana's "Adjudication Center" got only 18 correct.
So if you file for unemployment and receive a determination stating whether or not you should get UI, could be an 82% chance your determination is wrong!
Check the boxes for "Nonmonetary Separation Quality" and "Nonmonetary Nonseparation Quality", and be sure the quarter is from January 2010 to March 2010. You can also do any quarter this way and see that Indiana's has been bad for the last 4 years and getting worse.
There are many good lay-people working at DWD and especially with UI, but the training is poor (there is no standardized training program for claims adjudicators), claims deputies/adjudicators are still held to a de facto, very high quota to "take care of issues quickly", and the focus on quality has only somewhat recently come-up (but is still being done poorly). Nepotism and cronyism are big at DWD, which is impactful, and anybody with ideas or suggestions to improve the system (who are not sycophantic brown-nosers) are deemed radicals or troublemakers and are punished, harassed and terminated (there have been many people canned from DWD just to shut them up).
So if anyone out there buys the lines of "the recession caused the Trust Fund debt" or "we're doing better than other states", need to be told what I have provided above and educated about what the people running DWD have done to the UI program. Under Governor Daniels, DWD has developed one of the worst workforce development agencies in the country. The Governor has assigned friends from high places or good connections, not to mention former staff members, to run DWD, and they have run it into the ground.
When the Indiana UI program is this bad, businesses, claimants and taxpaying citizens are the ones punished for it with higher UI taxes, denying claimants who should have been paid UI, and costs that are passed on to taxpayers as well. Every Hoosier needs to remember this has happened SOLELY on Governor Daniels' watch. DWD's UI program is the antithesis of "fiscal conservatism" and is a disgrace to the laws and regulations of both the US government and State of Indiana.
Today we were a part of a statewide conference call alerting folks to the coming decimation of the backbone of our public school system. In a statewide conference call featuring Nate Shellenberger, President of the Indiana State Teacher's Association and teachers from across the state, some losing their jobs due to budget cuts and others on the bubble.
ISTA represents more than 50,000 teachers across the state and has been under siege by Governor Mitch Daniels (http://aloyalopposition.in/2009/12/29/daniels-cannot-wait-to-fire-some-teachers) and Superintendent Tony Bennett for some time.
First, Daniels (http://aloyalopposition.in/2010/02/25/my-malicious-mitch) took advantage of the property tax upheaval to permanently remove education from the property tax roles thus always making it linked to the more rollercoastery ebb and flow of sales and income taxes. Fully knowing that with the very next downturn he would have to fire teachers. He has long wanted to see government out of the education business. It is why he has begun advocating for less education. Did you ever think you'd have a Governor telling folks that they shouldn't aim for better educations?
Daniels (http://aloyalopposition.in/2009/12/16/disingenuous-daniels-gutting-education) has pressed since he was a part of Steve Goldsmith's privatize everything cabal and then George Bush's Your Child Left Behind crusade, to get government out of the education business so only wealthy folks can reach higher education's rewards.
Then his hand-picked hatchet man, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, pressed to make it easier for less-qualified people who do not have training as educators, replace professionally trained teachers. Bennett, as the guy who is supposed to ensure Indiana schools improve, wants to make it so professionals can be replaced with less skilled, under-certified non-educators.
All this is now coming under fire now as Iowa Senator Tom Harkin has announced the Keep Our Educator's Working Act.
A little old (March 2010), but I don't remember seeing it here or elsewhere in the Indiana blogosphere.
In 20 states, tax changes are providing a significant boost to revenues — that is, they are producing additional revenue of more than 1 percent of the prior year’s total revenues. Ten of those states have raised taxes by more than 5 percent of the prior year’s collections: California, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and Oregon.
Among the states that had significant increases, the largest increases as a share of tax revenue were in California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, and North Carolina. Each of these states, except Nevada, raised the general sales tax rate by one cent or more. Nevada increased the rate by about one-third of a cent (0.35 percentage points). As with the personal income tax increases, these sales tax increases are mostly temporary. They are scheduled to expire in June 2011 in California, Nevada, and North Carolina; they are permanent only in Indiana and Massachusetts.
Indiana increased the sales tax rate to 7 percent from 6 percent for a revenue increase of almost $1 billion.
Indiana capped the Media Production Expenditure Income Tax Credit for a revenue increase of nearly $10 million in fiscal year 2009.
The Superintendent of Education in the state of Indiana, Tony Bennett, along with Governor Mitch Daniels, want to de-professionalize the teaching profession in the name of U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan's Race to the Top funding plan.
Bennett, through his proposed Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability (REPA), wants to tie teacher evaluation, retention, and licensing to student test scores. No longer would teachers be required to meet professional standards, no longer would they be required to continue professional development, and one person, one school principal who may or may not have an educational background, will decide whether or not a teacher gets to keep a state license.
This is WRONG. Bennett must be stopped.
Bennett had this to say about today's release of the final application procedures for Race to the Top funds:
"In Indiana, we are eager to compete for the historic funding available under the Race to the Top. This competition catches us mid-stride in bold education-reform efforts that align well with the grant's criteria. Our application will be aggressive and comprehensive, designed in collaboration with schools, communities and leaders around the state.
"Our reform efforts already under way closely mirror the pillars of Race to the Top, because they have been crafted with the goals of increasing accountability, freedom and competition in our schools to increase students' academic achievement. Securing funding for our state will only increase the scope and speed of change for Hoosier students.
"For this reason, I am disappointed in the USDOE's choice to set target amounts for specific states, capping the funding for states regardless of their approach and commitment to reform. It's my belief that America's students would benefit more from Race to the Top if the quality, aggressiveness, and comprehensiveness of states' reform plans determine the funding amount.
"For Indiana, Race to the Top isn't about securing more funds; it's about accelerating reform. I am committed to ensuring Indiana's application secures our position as a national leader in education reforms that will help us reach our common goal - outstanding achievement for all Indiana's students."
Bennett is spewing a bunch of baloney.
First of all, this plan was conceived and drafted by Bennett and his conservative ilk and does not have the widespread support of professional educators across Indiana.
Secondly, Bennett's claim that his proposals "mirror" Race to the Top ideals is just plain garbage. They go far beyond funding requirements and are a blatant attempt to take away collective bargaining rights from Indiana teachers: in fact, there are going to be coordinated efforts in the Indiana state house to pass just such legislation, to break teachers' unions in Indiana.
Lastly, Bennett's disappointment is merely his veiled conservativism showing through, and when he speaks of "reform" he is really talking about taking away local control of schools and continuing Mitch Daniels' legacy of union-busting. The application and disbursement rules announced today insist that state teachers' unions be on-board with the states' applications; at present, this is NOT the case, though Bennett plans to push his "reform" down local schools' throats, changing rules in committee as much as possible without legislative changes to Indiana Code.
Bennett attempted to push his plans through last summer, when most teachers are out of the classroom. After an outcry, public comment period was delayed until school was in session; still, Bennett is scheduling sessions during the week when teachers are in the classroom and not able to express in numbers their opposition to his plans.
The Indiana State Teachers Association had this to say about Bennett's proposed rule changes:
November 3, 2009
Dear ISTA Member,
Thanks for the activism on the part of those of you who submitted comments online or attended and testified at one of the recent REPA hearings. By our count, more than 600 members took time off from school to attend one of the 10 a.m. hearings. We know that thousands of you also took the time to email your comments to Dr. Bennett and members of the Division of Professional Standards Advisory Board. We hope that the volume and quality of the testimony and comments alter the thinking and decision making of Dr. Bennett and the Board regarding teacher relicensure.
I also wanted to let you know that this morning I attended the Indiana Education Roundtable meeting co-chaired by Gov. Daniels and Dr. Bennett. Topics of discussion at today's meeting included:
* Elimination of tenure and seniority, meaning that every teacher would only be issued a one-year license;
* Evaluation of teachers by student test scores;
* Pay based on those evaluations;
* School choice;
* Teacher licensure retention tied to passing a test;
* Allowing multiple and non-traditional paths to become a licensed educator;
* Elimination of collective bargaining in Indiana.
When given the opportunity, I spoke to the Roundtable on behalf of all of Indiana's dedicated public educators.
After sitting through today's Roundtable meeting, I believe the groundwork is being laid for legislative efforts in the upcoming session of the General Assembly that will advance the same agenda that was shared at today's meeting. Once the legislative session starts in early January, I will be calling on you and other supporters of public education to help me as ISTA works to prevent the passage of legislation that will severely undermine the basic tenets of the public education system in our state.
Rest assured that ISTA will continue to monitor all education issues and advocate on behalf of public education, Indiana's students, and you.
Sincerely,
Nate Schnellenberger
The ISTA had posted a statement on August 31st saying that they were trying to work with Bennett on ensuring the continuation of tenure programs and fair teacher licensure, but their language and concern is obviously elevated now as Bennett was openly opposing the union's concerns at the Indiana Educators Roundtable.
With the NEA, they have an action alert page set up to alert your state legislators of concerns regarding Bennett's plans. Please take the time to contact your legislators and let them know that school reform, particularly regarding teaching licensure and professional standards, should not be rushed through, and that Tony Bennett's plans are NOT good for the state of Indiana.
Governor Daniels likes to brag about our State's surplus as opposed to other states - any state can create a surplus when they have completely no regard for their state's most vulnerable citizens.
The problems with IBM overshadow a much larger problem encompassing all of Indiana, also part of the overhaul of FSSA - benefit cuts to medicaid recipients and providers. Dr's now receive half of what they previously received for an office visit before the overhaul, and now many can no longer afford to take medicaid patients. The elderly and disabled are now put on waiting lists until the few doctors that do open their "medicaid panels".
Another change of many is a $600 cap on dental per year for those over 21. This detrimentally affects heart patients as they are at risk for an infection called endocarditis - an infection of the heart valve that enters the body through a tooth infection.
A 29 year old Indianapolis man with Cerebral Palsy and multiple heart defects is now unable to get the dental treatment he needs to prevent this infection. His cardiologist has always stressed the importance of keeping up with his dental work, stating he likely would not survive the infection because he has only one heart valve which already leaks. His CP and medications cause rapid tooth decay and dental expenses run $1,000-2,000 per year. He has outlived any other person with this same condition and is now at risk of death solely due to his inability to get the dental treatment he desperately needs.
The federal government contributes approx $16 for every $7 contributed by the state - cutting state funding has significantly cut federal funding, and therefore funding overall. There is no longer a distinction between the disabled and low income - these cuts have left our most vulnerable citizens completely helpless - they are uninsurable and medicaid is their only option.
Another call to action, this time from AARP Indiana. Personally, these are the most egregious cuts I've heard about, though I know the focus by the Democrats, thus far, is on Education (which is plenty important, just not one of my pet issues).
Home energy tax looms for low-income Hoosiers
Indiana's poorest families face a looming tax hike on energy unless the Indiana General Assembly acts soon to prevent it.
Gov. Mitch Daniels' proposed budget effectively reinstates Indiana's 7 percent sales tax on federal energy assistance payments to almost 200,000 low-income families. For the past three years, the Legislature has wisely exempted that assistance, known as LIHEAP, from state sales taxes.
That's a small but meaningful benefit for LIHEAP recipients, whose household income cannot exceed 150 percent of federal poverty guidelines ($21,855 for a family of two).
I don't get quite as excited about smoking cessation and prevention programs as I do about funding for the arts, but I do think it is an important public health issue. Here's the text of the email I received from the American Cancer Society:
Governor Daniels released his special session budget proposal on June 2nd. This budget proposal includes an additional $3.6 million cut annually to tobacco prevention and cessation funding. Tell your State Legislator and Governor Daniels that you want them to preserve this important funding. We know that tobacco prevention and cessation funding saves lives and saves money.
Please CLICK THE LINK BELOW to take action. You will find a convenient pre-written letter that you may personalize.
I don't know the full details of the budget. I'm sure there is going to be a lot of pain and a lot of calls for action as things become more clear. Here's the first one I've received. It's from the Indiana Coalition for the Arts. A 50% decrease in arts funding seems awfully unreasonable to me.
As you may know, Governor Mitch Daniels rejected the budget the Indiana Legislature presented to him at the end of April. In both the House and Senate versions of the budget, the Indiana Arts Commission (IAC) was treated fairly, with an 8% cut like other state agencies. This was in response to Governor Daniels initial budget proposal which would have slashed the IAC's budget by 50%!
Today, Governor Daniels released a new budget for the special session of the Legislature that will be called for later this month. His budget AGAIN calls for a 50% reduction of the IAC, from approximately $4M to $2M a year for the next biennium. This loss of support for our state's arts infrastructure will put community and regional arts organizations of all sizes and types at risk of going out of business.
Cross-posted at Daily Kos in a slightly different form.
The GOP is up to its old tricks--again. Governor Mitch Daniels has vetoed a bill that would have expanded the use of centralized early voting centers. And guess what excuse he used? That's right, fear of voter fraud.
Of course, it's complete and total b.s. The real reason is to try to keep voters, particularly working men and women, away from the polls in this increasingly blue state.
One in six Hoosier voters cast ballots prior to Election Day in November, with Lake and Porter counties tallying more than 53,000 absentee and in-person early votes. Each county must operate one early voting center, but the decision to open additional satellite locations must be unanimous among election board members.
The Democratic-controlled Lake County elections board deadlocked 3-2 along party lines last fall, but Democrats still opened auxiliary early voting sites in East Chicago, Gary and Hammond. Republicans protested but could not convince a county, state or federal judge to shutter the sites once voting began.
State Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, worked on SB 209 in the hope that it would head off future early voting disputes. He said having just one early voting site in Crown Point isn't sufficient for Indiana's second most populous county.
"I was trying to correct that situation because I don't think it should be a partisan situation," Smith said. "We should not make it difficult for people to vote. We should make it convenient for people to vote."
But Daniels said in his veto statement:
While this bill contains provisions that would make the act of voting more convenient, it does not contain sufficient safeguards against fraud and abuse and removes long-standing bipartisan checks and balances in the conduct of elections.
This answer, of course, is pure hogwash. Daniels is a poster child for the Rethugs.
Democratic election law expert Bill Groth stated:
This is really infuriating. Even after signing into law the nation's most restrictive voter ID bill, the Governor thinks we still don't have enough protections against fraud. That's just an excuse to veto a bill that broadened access by voters. SB 209 was a carefully crafted bipartisan compromise. I hope the Legislature will override this outrageous and irresponsible veto in the special session or at least on organization day in November.
If Daniels is so concerned about bipartisan checks and balances, he might take note that the IN Senate passed the measure 48-0 and the House passed it 55-43, this despite the fact that both bodies are split almost 50-50 between the parties.
His concerns about voter fraud are spurious. Not only does Indiana have an ID law in place, but as the South Bend Tribune explains:
Right now, voters in St. Joseph County are assigned to one of 230 precincts across the county. They must cast ballots at that precinct.
Under the "vote center" plan, the county would only have 70 precincts, but residents could vote at any of them. Names would be stored in an electronic book to ensure no one votes twice.
Even the Republican Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, spoke out against the veto, even though as a good little Gooper he had to do so on economic grounds, not on the basis of enfranchisement:
How ironic it is that the one local government reform that actually passes the legislature ends up getting vetoed. Vote Centers is perhaps the only local government reform that so far has been proven unequivocally to save taxpayers money. I would expect, given the serious fiscal condition of the state, that the concept is important enough to find its way into the budget bill so that all 92 counties be given the opportunity to realize the unquestionable taxpayer benefits and savings.
The fact is that there is no good reason to veto this bill. As long as Indiana law requires unanimous consent of the boards of election, any individual wingnut can veto opening an election center. It actually happened in Muncie when one Rethug blocked a voting center on the Ball State University campus because, get this, the GOP thinks college students' votes can be bought with free hot dogs. I kid you not.
I am hoping this can be overridden at the special session in June. The GOP's cynical, mean-spirited, and un-American practice of voter suppression must be stopped.
There is no denying that our state is facing an economic downturn due largely to a national economic environment beyond our control. But the truth of the matter is that you wouldn't have known that the way Mitch has been talking the last six months. He told us we were much better off! He told us we were insulated! Two jobs in every pot, and stylish motorcycle rides for all!
He's not an idiot. He knew we were in trouble. And for all of his straight-talking, gee-golly talking points, he sat idly by and let Hoosiers be convinced that somehow, someway, we might not have to face the magnitude of the challenges before us.
That's why I'm a little put off, more than anything.
Along those same lines, all eyes will need to remain vigilant and zeroed in on the Governor's office over the next few months. Mitch's vagueness and general reluctance to reveal what program cuts he has in mind would lead a more conspiratorial mind -- not me, of course -- to guess that he might be planning a few heavy-handed swipes at the social services programs that have already been ravaged under his watch.
I don't need a plan -- I didn't run on a platform of gumdrops and cotton candy -- but the Democrats in the General Assembly will certainly provide leadership during the legislative session. And while we here on the 'D' side of things didn't exactly make it hard for him during the election season, I'll be damned if Daniels gets to shrug off his campaign rhetoric so easily.
The Indiana Debate Commission seems mighty content with themselves after running the three gubernatorial debates of this last cycle.
The commission is a nonpartisan, volunteer citizen and media group in its first year of operation. It partnered with Indiana's 16 public broadcasting television and radio stations to extend coverage of the debates between Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, Democrat Jill Long Thompson and Libertarian Andrew Horning. Daniels won the election.
"In the commission's first year of operation, we could not have expected more with everyone from the League of Women Voters working registration tables at the events to donated support in legal services and set design," said Kevin Finch, commission president and news director of WISH-TV in Indianapolis.
The debates were held in Merrillville, Jasper and Bloomington.
Personally, I thought the questions and structure left a lot to be desired. The last debate consisted almost entirely of "personal" questions that offered little more than opportunities for everyone to talk about how much they love God and Country.
Assuming a few of you were able to stay awake for at least one in its entirety, what were your thoughts on the debates?
While the national media rushes to declare Mitch Daniels king of the world, those pesky folks over at the Bureau of Labor Statistics have come along and rained on everyone's parade. Some findings from today's data dump:
At 6.4%, Indiana's unemployment rate was up .2% from last month, and is up 1.9% from this time last year.
Our seasonally-adjusted labor force dropped another 7,000 jobs, and the unemployment rolls gained another 8,000.
We currently have 26,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than we had at this time last year.
On the other hand, the "government" sector gained 2,000 jobs. I suppose those are Mitch's small-government ideals coming out?
Presumably, Mitch's economic "hot streak" is still humming along nicely, at least in his head.
The problem, as I see it at least, is that the Daniels' playbook had absolutely nothing to do with the Republican Party. In fact, he ran from that burning building as fast as he could, and with the exception of some well-placed, last-second advertising for statehouse candidates, Daniels stayed the hell away from partisan politics entirely.
Which is why his "playbook" is completely useless to the national GOP. The base -- even the ones here in Indiana who can't get enough of Mitch -- are not going to be willing to embrace the post-partisan fluff that Daniels put out there with his admittedly great advertising. When it comes to 2012, there will be an appetite for red meat, and an economic conservative who keeps social issues on the back-burner just isn't going to cut it. We could say this about quite a few successful Republicans in recent years, though, and brings to light the larger issue of the GOP's disintegrating ideological alliance.
More critically, Daniels' victory had a lot to do with the lack of a viable opposition, another problem that the proverbial playbook would run into if duplicated.
All that being said, I'm inclined to at least agree with the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, who pegs Daniels as one of the Republicans to watch in the coming years.
At the end of the campaign, Daniels pledged in a television ad that he would never run for another office but even if he stays true to his word, his experience in 2008 makes him a valuable commodity for Republicans. While Daniels's ties to George W. Bush won't help him -- he served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2003 -- his electoral success in a critical Midwest battleground means Daniels has a seat at the table.
Friend-of-the-site Jen Wagner penned a piece at some ungodly hour this morning, questioning the trendy talking point that Mitch Daniels' victory last week represents an opportunity for the guy who was Bush's man to become a national leader in the Republican party's coming rebirth. She makes a lot of valid points, not the least of which is this:
Look, Daniels won by a huge margin, and I accept that. (If for no other reason than it gives me four more years to talk about him.)
But let's be honest: He got a free pass.
He never had to mention his opponent during his campaign because she never got her act together after the primary. Might he still have prevailed over another challenger? Sure. All I'm saying is that the national pundits and Republican insiders should take a closer look at their new hero before they carry him across the threshold.
Wagner rightfully focuses on a lot of problematic policy positions that Mitch has created or come to stand for, and she is certainly correct in pointing out that the reason Mitch was able to avoid the hard-right social conservatism that backfired on the national GOP this year was his lack of a viable opponent.
All that being said, I just want to add one thing: Mitch Daniels is boring.
Sure, he has shaken things up quite a bit, and the pirate-themed music in his commercials conjure up images of a diminutive swashbuckler hacking and slashing his way through state government. At the end of the day, though, the Republican party doesn't just need a lobotomy, it needs a facelift.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that Mitch Daniels is great on cross-state RV tours. He has an amazing memory, and a penchant for connecting to people in a one-on-one environment. He's good at it, and that is why he has spent the last five years piddling around in that contraption of his.
But he's also a lackluster public speaker, prone to belligerent outbursts, and has a notoriously short temper. I'm not going to lend too much advice to my friends on the other side of the ideological aisle, but he just doesn't look like a new Republican Party. And at the end of the day, I don't think he represents one.
Of course, I'm not really sure that the Republican Party wants a rebirth, or even that there is a cohesive monolith we can even call the "Republican Party" right now. Who wins that coming civil war will probably determine the face of the loyal opposition.
I actually wrote a much more lengthy postmortem on our statewide contests a week or so ago, but the sheer size of Mitch Daniels' margin of victory over Jill Long Thompson -- and the unfortunate, yet inevitable narrow losses that followed for our two other statewide candidates -- speaks for itself in a lot of ways. For that reason, I'll offer only a few thoughts.
In order to properly understand the failure of Jill Long Thompson's campaign, you really have to look at the surprising demise of Jim Schellinger's. The first 3-6 months of his effort provided a perfect blueprint of how a lackluster campaign structure can screw up a seemingly great opportunity. I gave credit to Jim at the time for recognizing when changes needed to be made and for making them -- something that nearly saved his campaign -- but there is no denying that his effort was lost in those critical first few months. In the end, the presidential primary factors really dictated the eventual outcome of that race, but the tone was set far before that circus ever rolled into town.
And yet, after being an active observer of all of this, Jill Long Thompson and her staff turned around and repeated the mistakes of history nearly misstep-for-misstep, a sin made even more inexcusable when you consider the number of oft-maligned "establishment" voices who reached out to them in the formative post-primary period when her campaign began its long, consistent journey into the wilderness. There will undoubtedly be a lot of finger pointing in the coming days, at least behind closed doors and on background with reporters, but the simple, inescapable fact is that this race was hopelessly, needlessly lost in the four to six weeks after the primary election.
The media cameras were on, the electorate was engaged, and our gubernatorial campaign simply went into hiding in Argos, not to be seen or heard from again until the state convention in June. By that point, the die had been cast, and history had repeated itself in the most horrific of ways.
Ultimately, this effort was salvageable for much longer than it ever should have been thanks to Barack Obama's stellar campaign, but the insular stubbornness of the candidate and top-level staff -- and the irrational bitterness that seemed to motivate much of the internal decision-making process -- precluded a changing of the strategic guard that at just about any point pre-September could have likely put Long Thompson in the Governor's Mansion.
It's sad, it was unnecessary, but that battle is behind us. Learning from the mistakes of your predecessors is one of the basic building-blocks of any successful political campaign, and if there is one silver lining to all of this, it is that we have a lot of educational material to peruse for the next four years.
All apologies for the light posting today. As it turns out, the first year of law school is not especially designed with blogging and election years in mind, even for a slacker like myself.
Time's online outfit takes a look at Indiana's development into a hotbed for presidential politics, and although it won't be anything new to any of you, I'd recommend it for anyone who hasn't been playing particularly close attention for the last few months. That being said, their descriptions of the two campaigns is a useful reminder of the fundamental difference between Barack Obama's approach to this election year and that of the rusted, outdated Republican machine.
The Obama campaign has opened 44 offices across Indiana, including two in Elkhart County, a historically Republican-leaning county just to the north of here. "Two years ago, I would have told you that'd be crazy," says Shari Mellin, the county's Democratic Party chair. Now Obama-Biden signs have become fixtures along two-lane country roads abutting cornfields. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign has been credited with registering many of Indiana's new would-be voters. Already, some 410,000 Indianans have cast votes. Indiana's secretary of state, Ted Rokita, projects some 65% of the state's 4.5 million voters will participate in this election - the highest since 1992.
[...]
McCain's campaign here, by contrast, is notably weak, a sign of how the GOP has long taken Indiana for granted. It hasn't opened a single campaign office, and the Indiana Republican Party's local offices are managing McCain's outreach efforts.
The problem with McCain's supposed reliance upon the local GOP machine is the simple fact that although Mitch Daniels supports him privately, he long ago cashed in the national Republican narrative and bought himself a rhetorical ticket to the "change" party. The strategy was as bizarre as it has been effective, and I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Mitch's targeted Election Day constituency is even all that similar to McCain's at this point.
Luckily for him, he hasn't had to push all that hard to get out the vote. In a lot of ways, a more competitive Democratic candidate would have placed pressure on Mitch to choose sides in the national back-and-forth, but his ability to disengage entirely has allowed him to keep his conservative credentials without touching the plague that is McCain/Palin '08.
Barack Obama was in Lake County yesterday, making what was described as a "closing argument" to Hoosier voters. Over 20,000 showed up in Highland to hear his message, and I certainly hope that the evening rally allowed the good senator to sleep in his own bed. Doubtful, I know...
Yesterday also brought us another statewide data dump, the product of a partnership between the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics and SurveyUSA. The results show Change v. More of the Same still locked in a close contest.
The poll showed Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama each receiving 47% of the support from the 900 registered and likely voters questioned. Despite the tight presidential race, the same poll showed Gov. Mitch Daniels with a commanding lead over his Democratic opponent, Jill Long Thompson.
[...]
While the choice over president was split, the poll showed the majority of Hoosiers believe the economy is the most important issue, and a slight majority of respondents felt Obama would handle that better than McCain. Obama also had leads in voters concerned about the environment, health care, Iraq and education. McCain held leads in voters concerned about terrorism, Social Security and immigration.
Daniels has a wide margin over Long Thompson, leading 55% to 38%.
The poll shows 4% voting for Libertarian Andrew Horning and 3% undecided.
Social Security? Are you kidding me?
Dubious single-issue results aside, these results echo everything else in the world, begging two obvious questions: Will Barack Obama carry down-ticket Hoosier Democratic candidates with him on election day? Will Jill Long Thompson be a drag on these same candidates?
Thoughts and opinions are welcomes in the comment section. The floor is yours.
The most remarkable thing about the polling we've seen in Indiana over the last few months? The lack of any substantial movement.
True to form, Hoosiers have been reluctant to swing back and forth in any dramatic fashion, and aside from a few outliers in the gubernatorial contest, the numbers have stayed in the same general area. The presidential contest has provided us with a painfully slow uptick in the Obama numbers over time, but has remained on the whole a neck-and-neck contest. The gubernatorial trend-line has just been painful.
With that in mind, Research 2000 has new numbers out for WISH-TV, and the script is all too familiar.
Yet the WISH-TV Indiana Poll shows Palin as the only member of either ticket with a favorable rating (45) lower than her unfavorables (48). And John McCain's last visit to Indiana came on July 1 when, in a 24-Hour News 8 interview, he talked about a greater presence in the Hoosier state.
Governor 54% - Mitch Daniels 40% - Jill Long Thompson
The poll also shows the governor gets more support from men than from women.
It's a ten point difference, 59 percent of men said they would vote for Daniels if the election were today. Forty-nine percent of women would re-elect the governor. About a third of the men surveyed said they prefer Jill Long Thompson. They're outnumbered by the women who say they prefer her.
Governor 61% - Mitch Daniels 30% - Jill Long Thompson
Third Congressional District (MoE +/- 5.7%) 44% - Mike Montagano (D) 41% - Mark Souder (R)
This is the second independent poll to show Montagano competitive, and provides further affirmation of Obama's statewide competitiveness. The gubernatorial numbers are obviously a reason for concern, and I would imagine that even Brian Howey doesn't believe we'll see a margin that large on election night. A recent Research 2000 pegging of a 12-point race seems much more believable.
There is a lot of additional information in the full data dump, and I'm still parsing it all myself. Feel free to drop in the comments any other gems you come across.
The only thing worse than a bad policy idea, it turns out, is a bad policy idea that turns out to be illegal. Just ask Mitch Daniels:
Gov. Mitch Daniels said Friday that he is dropping the idea of privatizing the Hoosier Lottery as an option for paying for a college scholarship program after the U.S. Department of Justice said such a move would not comply with federal law.
The Oct. 16 opinion, which Daniels' office said was requested by Indiana and New Jersey, says states would not comply with federal law if they enter into long-term private management agreements to operate their lotteries.
All of this would be somewhat encouraging if Mitch Daniels didn't have a seemingly insatiable thirst for privatizing every last bit of our state government. Odds are we won't hear anything about that until after the election, though.
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