Thursday’s Thoughts
Wow, there’s nothing like two weeks before an election to have multiple story lines pop up all over the place. So let’s get started.
Indiana Democrats continue to accuse Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Coats of lying about when he began to pursue his lobbying career. State Chairman Dan Parker has another news conference slated for today to provide what he says is more proof of Coats’ dishonesty. I spoke to the Coats campaign earlier today and they did not appear worried. I would love to see some polling data a week from now to see if this storyline has picked up traction and resonated with soft Coats supporters or Independents.
The war of words grows between Democrat Terry Curry and Republican Mark Massa over the David Bisard case. Curry says he would reinstate the DUI charges against Bisard. (He said this on my morning radio show late last month.) Massa says he would re-file the charges, if the facts establish consent, and be willing to go to the Indiana State Supreme Court. I knew it was a matter of time before the Bisard case made its way into the Prosecutor’s race.
Meanwhile, in the race for Marion County Sheriff Democrat John Layton is potentially turning what could be a political molehill into a mountain. Marion County GOP Chairman Tom John has filed an ethics complaint against Layton for what he says were the use of Sheriff’s deputies and squad cars in his ad for County Sheriff. Layton’s campaign has yet to comment and the Marion County Sheriff’s department referred inquiries to Chairman Ed Treacy. State law prohibits using government resources for political purposes. The easy way for Layton to put the story to bed is just say “he did not use government resources” and provide the documentation if the deputies were paid actors and the squad cars were rentals. It will take all of five minutes. Say what you will about Charlie White, but at least he denied committing voter fraud. Layton should at least say he did not misuse government resources. But then again, he may not want to respond. Word on the street is that he has a decent lead in the internal polling that’s been done so why screw it up?
Speaking of Secretary of State, my GOP sources are telling me that their internal polling of the Indiana Secretary of State’s race as of last week shows Republican Charlie White – 39%, Democrat Vop Osili – 26%, Libertarian Mike Wherry – 5%, Undecided – 30%.
And in case you were wondering, I’m told that as of 11 a.m. Wednesday morning there were nearly 9300 absentee and early ballots cast in Marion County so far. That number was about 8300 at this time in 2008. Now granted early voting began two days later in 2008 than 2010, the experts say midterm election turnout tends to run about 60% of presidential years. These numbers say we could see some pretty interesting results in two weeks.
