Brian's blog

Jake Tapper is reporting that the National Shooting Sports Foundation is accusing the Obama campaign - and specifically, the Indiana for Change campaign - of misappropriating its email list:

Somehow, the NSSF charges, on September 27, 2008, the Obama campaign's Hoosier arm -- "Indiana for Change" -- distributed a press release to the SHOT Show media list, one entitled "Statement from Barack Obama on National Hunting and Fishing Day."

"Obama for America through its Indiana for Change arm has violated NSSF's legal rights and caused NSSF damages for partisan political gain," accuses Lawrence Keane, vice president and legal counsel for the trade association, demanding that Obama's campaign stop using the list, destroy it, and pay NSSF a quarter million dollars for having used it.

You can see a PDF of the NSSF letter here. In my view, the NSSF loses a little credibility by CC'ing "Barak H. Obama". If you can't spell a Presidential candidate's name correctly, what else have you overlooked?

A new Research 2000 poll for WISH-TV shows Baron Hill with a 12-point lead in the 9th District.

If the election for Congress were held today, would you vote for Baron Hill, the Democrat, or Mike Sodrel, the Republican?

The Research 2000 Indiana Poll was conducted from September 29 through October 3, 2008. A total of 800 likely voters who vote regularly in state elections were interviewed statewide by telephone.

And Jim Shella adds a little color:

Bloomington Herald Times editor Bob Zaltsberg said, "Hill-Sodrel doesn't seem to have quite the pizzazz or intensity that it's had in the last few years."

There will be a debate the week after next and Sodrel wants the candidates attached to lie detectors. He may need such a gimmick to pull this one out.

(Crossposted from BlueIndiana)

(H/T to Thomas at BlueIndiana)

I guess when you're trailing by double digits this late in the race, you'll do anything for attention:

Ninth District Republican Party Chairman Larry Shickles on Wednesday proposed the political polygraphs for Democratic Rep. Baron Hill, GOP challenger Mike Sodrel and Libertarian candidate Eric Schansberg. [...]

Shickles, in a letter sent Tuesday to 9th District Democratic Chairman Mike Jones, suggested that the candidates be hooked up to lie detecting machines at the Oct. 21 event or a separate debate.

"While this format may be unusual, I feel strongly that voters need to be able to make a clear decision without all the usual spin," Shickles wrote.

Sodrel's campaign said he would agree to the proposal, and Schansberg said he also would agree to wear a lie detector. Hill declined to comment. (Source: AP)

Unfortunately for Sodrel and the Party of Desperate Tactics (TM), the debate organizers aren't buying it.

The fact is, the voters here in the 9th District trust Baron Hill, and for good reason - he's spent his time in Congress listening to his constituents and taking their needs seriously. On the other hand, Mike Sodrel closed his Congressional offices after his electoral defeat, leaving his constituents in the cold. Even putting aside Sodrel's obvious inattention to the people of the 9th District, it's obvious that his extremist views and loyalty to the failed policies of the Bush administration are out of step with Hoosiers.

Now, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I have some serious policy disagreements with Baron Hill - but I really respect him and the work he's done for Hoosiers. He's earned our trust, and doesn't need to rely on cheap gimmicks.

Welcome to life in a swing state - the GOP voter suppression machine is gearing up in Indiana.

While we had a minor argument over the placement of early voting centers here in Monroe County, up in Lake County the lawsuits are flying. Thomas at BlueIndiana has done some incredible work on following this issue (here, here, here, and here), but TPM gives a good rundown of the basics:

But under Indiana law, early voting can take place only in the county clerk's main office, which for Lake County is in Crown Point, more than an hour's drive from those cities.

As a result, on September 23, the county board of elections, on a 3-2 party-line vote, approved the opening of satellite early-voting centers in the the three cities. (State law specifically gives elections boards the authority to approve satellite voting centers, and early voting occurred at the centers in advance of the Democratic primary in May.)

But Republicans argue that the decision is unfair to voters in other parts of the state, many of whom would still need to travel to their county seat to vote early. Last week, the county GOP challenged the move, arguing that the centers can only be approved through a unanimous vote of the election board, and asking for a restraining order on early voting.

More after the jump...

So Mike Sodrel finally has a TV commercial on the air - you can see the YouTube version at Hoosier Political Report.

It's a weak attempt at responding to the DCCC's "Millionaire Mike" ads, hitting Sodrel on economic issues, and it comes on the heels of some very bad news for Sodrel. Despite the desperate tactic of "leaking" an internal poll, the latest independent polling shows Hill with a 15-point lead. And according to Swing State Project, the DCCC has spent almost $400K in the 9th district since early September, while the cash-strapped RNCC hasn't chipped in to help Sodrel at all. Baron has been running strictly positive ads for several weeks.

Plus, Baron Hill voted against the Wall Street Bailout bill - the second time, after carefully listening to his constituents back here in Indiana. He's even got a new ad up touting his vote. (Unfortunately, the embedded video plays automatically. Watch it after the jump...)

On the heels of yet another poll showing Jill Long Thompson within striking distance of Mitch Daniels, she's aggressively touring the state and promoting her economic plan. While she's not back on the airwaves with any ads, she's timed this economic push very well. At the same time that more attention is being paid to Mitch Daniels' disastrous privatization of state welfare services, Jill is promoting her plan:

The plan, outlined in a 56-page document, would, among other things, overhaul the state’s tax structure, create “green” jobs, improve the state’s infrastructure and reform Indiana’s education system.

It also would suspend the state gasoline tax, work to provide a free book each month to Hoosier children up to age 5, change Indiana’s voter ID law, dismantle the newly privatized welfare intake system and provide tax incentives for job creation in Indiana counties based on the economic strength of those counties. (Source: Terre Haute Tribune-Star)

You can find the full OneIndiana Plan at Jill's website.

Today, she's joining Barack Obama, Evan Bayh, and Andre Carson at a rally in Indianapolis.

Next Tuesday, she's in Bloomington for the final gubernatorial debate and a fundraiser - don't miss your chance to help retire George Bush's Man Mitch.

From John at The Bloomington Beacon:

A reception for political and school-board candidates (MCCSC, RBBCSC) will be held on Oct. 12, 5:30-7:00 p.m. in Fellowship Hall at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington, 2120 N. Fee Lane.

Come share your concerns with Monroe County candidates! and hear their positions on major issues, including issues of particular interest to LGBT people!

Reception co-sponsors include: Bloomington PFLAG, Bloomington Beacon, Indiana Equality Region 9, bloomingOUT at WFHB-FM, Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance, and Rainbow Rights Task Force of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington.

Since I screwed up my wrist, my posting has been a little light. Until I'm typing normally again, here's some good reading for you:

• 538.com profiles the Obama ground game in Bloomington as part of their ongoing contrast between the campaigns. Now that we're a swing state, we're getting all kinds of attention.
  
  

• Julie Thomas lays out the case against building a new jail - an issue she shares with fellow DFMC A-List candidates Mark Stoops, Elizabeth Cure, and Valeri Haughton.
  
  

• New SUSA poll shows Baron Hill up big - and Obama is within striking distance here in the 9th. If you want to know how that's possible, see the first link above.
  
  

• If you missed the County Commissioner forum at Ivy Tech, WFHB has it online.
  
  

• Yet another poll shows that Jill Long Thompson is close to taking out George Bush's Man Mitch. How many polls can be outliers?
  
  

Yesterday's USA Today contained an article on the Indiana Right to Life's county-by-county strategy in Indiana.

(For our earlier entries on this issue, see Anti-abortion measures continue in other counties and Vanderburgh County Commissioners under fire for abortion vote.)

The piece does a good job of succintly summarizing the issue, and gets some really great quotes:

Some abortion clinics are staffed by doctors who are based elsewhere and are unlikely to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, so the rules present a new obstacle for abortion providers.

"Absolutely, it's a new strategy," says Mike Fichter, president of Indiana Right to Life. The ordinances ensure that women with complications after abortions can quickly get medical care, he says, but he hopes they also make abortions harder to get.

Fichter expects at least a half-dozen Indiana counties to pass similar measures this year. Eighteen states require a relationship between abortion clinics and hospitals, says the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit research and education group.

Betty Cockrum, president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, says the ordinances are unneeded because states regulate medical facilities. She expects abortion foes elsewhere to follow Indiana's lead.

National groups on both sides of the abortion debate are monitoring Indiana. "Could it have an effect on the availability of abortions? Certainly, if providers refuse to comply with the law," says Denise Burke, vice president of Americans United for Life.

"These kinds of local ordinances could fly under the radar and have a real impact," says Celine Mizrahi, legislative counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, a non-profit legal advocacy group.

There's also a great summary of what's happened so far:

Action so far in Indiana:

• Vanderburgh County commissioners last month voted unanimously to require doctors who perform abortions in the county to have admitting privileges there or in an adjacent county.

The county has no abortion clinic. Mary Ellen Van Dyke of Vanderburgh County Right to Life, says the measure was proposed after the Indiana Legislature failed to pass a similar law this year.

• Dubois County, which has no abortion clinic, passed the regulation last month. "We want to get out ahead of it where we can prevent" one from opening, says Commissioner Larry Vollmer.

• In Allen County, where there is an abortion clinic staffed by a doctor from another county, commissioners haven't scheduled a vote. They are considering broadening a proposed ordinance to include all "itinerant" medical procedures such as laser eye surgery, Commissioner Nelson Peters says.

If Allen County votes to require hospital admitting privileges, her group would consider legal action, Mizrahi says. The group says the ordinance would encroach on state authority.

Once again, it shows how important it is for us to elect County Commissioners who understand the issues at stake, and who represent Monroe County - luckily, we have Mark Stoops and Iris Kiesling on the ballot this fall.

I just got a fundraising email from Baron Hill's campaign, citing new numbers from one of Sodrel's internal polls. According to the forwarded email, Sodrel's internal poll from Wilson Research Strategies, taken Sept 8-9, shows the race within the margin of error, 44 Hill - 41 Sodrel.

This poll hasn't been publicly released, although it was leaked to a blogger Josh Gillespie at HoosierAccess and reported on at Howey Politics. It shows the race much closer than any of the SUSA polls have shown.

Josh claims that the poll also shows McCain with a 20-point lead (56-36) and Daniels with a 20-point lead (55-35), which is pretty far removed from most of the other poll numbers for the Presidential and higher than the other Gubernatorial polls. (In fact, 56 is much higher than McCain has registered in any of the polls listed on Pollster.) HoosierAccess has the PDF of the toplines here. (I've also snagged a copy for future reference.)

Josh also claims, quoting from the report, "The district is decidedly more Republican this cycle than last." This ignores the fact that in Monroe County alone, there have been more than 13,000 new/updated registrations since the May primary - 5,500 in the last month, and more than 2,300 in the last seven days. The Campaign for Change has been focusing almost exclusively on voter registration in the past few weeks, and they've canvassed my neighborhood at least twice. This poll is an outlier, too, in that it doesn't find the big chunk of Obama supporters who are leaning toward Daniels - something that's been a constant in most other polls this cycle.

Baron Hill is, of course, using these numbers to try and raise funds for even more TV ads. I know I live in Monroe County - which has given Baron his margin of victory in each of his wins - but I haven't seen much activity from Sodrel aside from yard signs. (He did talk to the IU College Republicans a few weeks back.)

It will be interesting to see the next round of financial disclosures in this race, and how much of his own money Millionaire Mike is willing to burn in this re-re-rematch.

The "leaked" email and the full text of Baron's pitch are after the jump...

The latest poll numbers in Indiana are out - according to a just-released Howey-Gauge poll, Hoosiers are evenly divided in their support for John McCain and Barack Obama:

Hoosiers are likely to find themselves at the American political epicenter over the next 60 days as the latest Howey-Gauge Poll shows Republican John McCain with a 45-43 percent lead over Democrat Barack Obama

It doesn't look like they've released the full crosstabs, but the article has a lot more information to dig through, with some interesting implications for Barack Obama and his upcoming visit to Indiana.

Now, for the bad news:

Mitch Daniels - 53
Jill Long Thompson - 35

Again, I haven't had time to delve into these numbers at all, but this is bad news for a poll this late in the season:

In the gubernatorial race, Democrat Jill Long Thompson faces a dilemma similar to what she faced in the primary. Her total awareness stood at 77 percent, up from 41 percent in February and 59 percent in April. While that number increased, her favs and unfavs both increased 10 percent from 22/9 in April to 32/19 in August.

Also, it appears that Mitch is edging toward that magic "50" on the re-elect question. I'll have more on this later.

(Via The Bloomington Beacon)

Indiana Equality is collecting signatures to petition the General Assembly on the Indiana Civil Right Law, which will be reconsidered in 2009. The text of the petition is simple and to the point:

All Indiana residents should be provided protections against discrimination. I urge the Governor and the Indiana General Assembly to assure basic rights in employment, public accomodations, credit, and housing for all Hoosiers.

As John at the Bloomington Beacon reminds us:

It is still legal in Indiana today to fire someone from a job, to deny someone a raise or job promotion, to kick someone out of an apartment, to refuse to sell someone a house, to deny someone credit, and to bar someone from public accommodations--simply because that person is PERCEIVED to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender!

You can sign the petition online, and add your name to the list of Hoosiers who believe in basic fairness.

An unattributed report in the Herald Times (sub req'd) says that Auditor Sandy Newmann called for the resignation of County Council President Vic Kelson while responding to the latest allegations and request for a special prosecutor:

She also called for the resignation of Monroe County Council President Vic Kelson, who brought the six-figure financial discrepancy to the attention of the State Board of Accounts and the Monroe County prosecutor’s office.

According to the article, the error in appropriating $350,000 to the employee insurance fund was discovered by the employee who made the original mistake. The action was corrected on August 12, just eight days after the request was mistakenly approved by the DGLF.

What's most troubling is that - according to the Auditor's office - no one from the Council or Prosectuor's office asked her staff about the mistake:

She said nobody approached her to discuss the issue prior to a request made Tuesday that a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate allegations of “official misconduct and misappropriation of funds” by her office and/or its employees.

“This is not how elected officials should communicate,” she said. “Not through the courts, wasting taxpayer money on ridiculous court actions.”

While I can't support any request for Kelson to resign over this matter, the complete breakdown in communication between the Auditor's office and the Council is unacceptable. This is not the first time these offices have tried to compete for public attention through the media rather than walking down the hall and figuring out how to make things work.

(H/T Masson)

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports that the Allen County Commissioners are introducing a bill that would require "all surgeons and doctors who provide outpatient invasive procedures to have ties to a local hospital and have on-call, after-hours staff to handle emergencies" - a measure widely seen as an attempt to impose additional restrictions on abortion. Vanderburgh County recently passed a very similar measure. According to the article, the measure is widely expected to pass.

Unlike Vanderburgh County, though, Allen County has a clinic that performs abortions:

The doctor who performs abortions for the lone clinic in Fort Wayne is based in South Bend. Dr. George Klopfer also works in Gary. Klopfer previously questioned whether county government had jurisdiction to require such a change when he is already licensed through the state.

He also previously predicted that the county couldn’t enforce such a law and that it would likely end up in a lengthy court battle.

Masson points out that the doctor is probably right in saying that this is probably unenforceable:

Recall that county Certificate of Need programs, purporting to prohibit construction of medical facilities have been struck down because county authority is pre-empted by the state. The law generally has been that regulation of local health care is in the hands of the Indiana State Department of Health. Unless the Allen County Commissioners have a firm basis for believing that this is a special case for which they have jurisdiction, then they’re just wasting taxpayer money by adopting this law.

Regardless, this again shows the advantage that right-wing groups have in local politics. This bill shows that they are very good at framing this as a "womens' health" measure, not an anti-abortion measure. And this is despite the fact that one of the chief proponents of the bill admits that they have no evidence of any medical complications from abortions, only "anecdotal reports":

Cathie Humbarger, Allen County Right to Life president, said her group supports the bill because there are anecdotal reports of abortion complications, although there is no way to actually track those problems. She said the bill added reasonable requirements for doctors.

“It would seem those interested in the health of women would certainly be a supporter of this particular action,” she said.

Following reports of Mitch Daniels campaigning on tax dollars, the Long Thompson campaign issued a press release calling for Mitch Daniels to reimburse Hoosiers for his political travel expenses.

According to the release, the JLT campaign is requesting that the Daniels campaign release all information related to these trips, and for the Inspector General to look into the matter. But it gets better:

"Beyond any illegal or unethical activity that may or may not be going on, this is an issue of judgment and an issue of priorities," added Lowe. "You would think that at a time when so many Hoosier families are struggling, when we are losing jobs every day and when government services are being cut, Governor Daniels would be a little more cautious with our tax dollars."

"Why can't he drive to the airport like everyone else? Does he really need to have a helicopter pick him up at his house?" questioned Lowe. "Since he refuses to live in the Governor's Residence, I know he has further to go, but with so many Hoosiers barely making ends meet, incurring this added expense just seems ridiculous."

This is good stuff - can we make a campaign commercial out of this, rather than the fluff that's been playing?

Full text of the release after the jump:

The Herald Times (sub req'd) reports that the Monroe County Prosecutor's office has requested a special prosecutor to look into a complaint about the Auditor's office:

On Tuesday, chief deputy prosecuting attorney Bob Miller filed a petition asking that a prosecutor from outside Monroe County be appointed to look into a complaint filed with his office by a county government official who is not named in the request.

In the one-page petition, which contains no details about the allegations, Miller said a special prosecutor is necessary to avoid an appearance of impropriety.

Laura Lane's article cites County Attorney Bill Steger as being unaware of the complaint or the request for a special prosecutor. The article then goes into a quick re-hash over the confusion about the $350,000 appropriation to the county employees’ insurance fund. However, the article cites no sources that this confusion is the cause for the underlying complaint. And although she quotes County Council President Vic Kelson's account of a conversation with the Prosecutor's office - which indicates that the mis-appropriation of funds may have been illegal - she quickly backtracks:

He added that he is not accusing anyone of wrongdoing.

This case will be worth watching, but unfortunately this article provides very little news to go along with paragraphs of insinuation.

On Friday, September 5, Baron Hill will host the 2008 Southern Indiana Economic Forum at IU Southeast in New Albany.

Bloomington City Councilman - and former DFMC A-List Candidate - Dave Rollo will be among the presenters for the half-day forum. Topics will include gas prices, housing markets, and healthcare costs.

Full schedule of events after the break...

DFMC hosted a guest post about the proposed Bloomington Hospital merger a couple of months back, and the saga continues.

(For background on this issue, check out this excellent History of the Hospital merger post by our friends at Btown Hospital Watch.)

Today, the Herald Times reports (sub req'd) that LCW member and attorney Guy Loftman is sending a petition to LCW president Susan Wier:

There are 99 signatures on the petition, which asks Wier to call a special meeting of the membership to consider his resolution that the June 16 vote be rendered null and void.

Considering that the LCW leadership tried to bring disciplinary charges against one dissenter, it should be interesting to see how they react.

(H/T Jennifer at Hoosier Political Report)

Matthew Colglazier - Democratic candidate for Indiana Senate District 44 - completed a 37.4 mile walk on Saturday to honor the working men and women of southern Indiana.

The Walk for Workers started with a gathering at the recently closed Visteon Plant in Bedford and concluded just over 12 hours later at Gaiser Park in Seymour. Matt had various volunteers who accompanied him along the route and even more who delivered water and encouragement along the way.

DFMC members were very impressed with Matt's performance during our spring candidate forums, and we're glad to see he's still bringing his impressive skills to important causes. Let's show a little appreciation for Matt's sore feet - and help him win District 44 from Brent Steele this fall.