Replies

Indiana is definitely a very conservative state; you are way too hung up on party labels. Indiana's Democrats would likely be solid conservatives in most any other state in the Union.

Forget that Indiana has voted GOP in pretty much every Presidential election since Lincoln, and take a look at the actual makeup of the state. You said you're from Indianapolis, so take a look at people like Murray Clark or Luke Kenley from your neck of the woods. Those two people are just about as conservative as anyone I've ever met in my life, and if you're not involved in Indiana politics already, those names will become a lot more familiar to you in the next several months, as they are both running for Governor. Clark had ought to already be familiar; he ran for Lt. Gov in our last election. Go west of Indianapolis and we see people like John Waterman; going southeast we find Johnny Nugent. Southwest, we've got Becky Skillman--a name that has been mentioned over and over again for Secty of State--speaking of which, Todd Rikita is about as conservative as they come, and he'll be on the ballot next November. All this doesn't even mention someone like Atterholt, who represents Pike in the House. Of course, I don't even need to mention the 32-18 edge the Rs hold in the State Senate, a gap which is expected to widen after this November's election.

Even our Ds are pretty solid conservative folks; I don't like O'Bannon, but his penachant for "sin" taxes aside, he's a pretty decent fiscal conservative; granted, the Senate probably keeps him in line. Joe Kernan, the likely D candidate for Gov in the next election, besides being one of the genuinely nicest people I've ever met, is a pretty darn conservative fellow; his record in South Bend speaks to that. Add to that his record the last 8 years, and it ain't bad.

Look too at the strength of conservative fringe groups in Indiana, like the Libertarians. Indiana has one of the largest and most powerful Libertarian parties in the country--most definitely because of its HIGHLY conservative population.

While it's true that one of our Senators is a D who rode in on Dad's coattails, he's a pretty conservative guy who took a left turn to get to Washington from Indiana--even taking that left turn into account, he's still one of the more conservative Ds in Washington. Of course, Shark, you fail to mention that Bayh has never won an election against an incumbent, neither for Governor nor for the Senate; Orr's term had expired when Bayh ran for Gov and Coats resigned when Bayh ran for his Senate seat. Which brings up the point, of course, that Bayh's seat was occupied by two hard core conservatives before he came to Washington: Dan Coats, current ambassador to Germany and the man who lost the Secty of Defense job to Rummy, and Dan Quayle, who needs no further description as to his conservative politics.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Hostettler, who I personally think is a big jerk, but that's neither here nor there. Despite his personally, he does have a very conservative voting record, and manages to win elections despite having the most liberal city in the state in his district (Bloomington).

I read a comment earlier about how Hostettler's seat was a "lock" this term, and I think that is being optimistic nearly to the point of being laughable. The old 8th was as hard fought as any district in the country, and the new 8th, not to mention the entire Indiana map, was drawn specifically to beat him; that is one valuable seat, and make no mistake about it--the Ds drew the map this past census. While there is some speculation that Mahern might have screwed up when he drew those maps, we won't know till next november.

In the meantime, greetings from an ultra-conservative midwest state.