Indiana 2012 Congressional Races

[Torie]

It is almost impossible with redistricting not to make IN-09 (Baron Hill's old seat now held by Young), into anything  other than a GOP bastion. In my map, IN-09 voted 57.82% for McCain, up from about 51% McCain. IN-09 has to expand, and it's Pubbie country in all directions it can expand into from its SE corner of the state. IN-02 is now at 53% McCain, up from 45% McCain. I expect to see these kind of numbers in the new map, assuming the GOP has the guts to append Monroe County to Indianapolis, and do the South Bend and Elkhart chops to give IN-02 a big Pubbie shove.

So I suspect both Hill and Donnelly will be running for statewide office, both probably losing, and then retiring from politics.

[Torie]

I'm sure this has already been asked somewhere, but what are the laws in Indiana with regards to running as an independent or write-in? Any chance Lugar goes that route?

Unfortunately, there is a sore loser law in effect. That won't stop me from writing him in if he happens to lose in the primary.

If there wasn't, I seriously believe Lugar could win as a write-in, and would probably be favored if he had ran as an Independent.

It is interesting you have such disdain for Mourdock for the reasons you described elsewhere, while on the other hand the National Review in an editorial endorsing him, characterizes him as "low key" and "capable, competent conservative."  With that trio of ecomimums attending the word "conservative," while Mourdock may be too rigid as a "conservative" for RINO types like me (it depends), it hardly renders him an object of derision and disdain.

You clearly have a different view of the appropriateness of such ecomimums. Did something in particular about him cause you to cast the Mourdock man into Mordor Tmthforu94?

Anyway, the stench of death about Lugar most noisome haunts my mind's eye, and I cannot cast it away. I see his body on the floor when the fat lady sings.

[Torie]

Bennett was bagged in Utah, and Specter just fled the scene futilely seeking to evade that certain final exit that was his ineluctable fate.  How many moderates are left to bag anyway? I mean now they are eating their own when they go after Hatch.

[Torie]

Indiana is more Pub than the rest of the zone because it is more culturally traditional, it is "in" to be young and a Christian, it's light on the ground with upper middle class liberals, and the base of the Dem support there is white working class folks who have been trending Pub as the private sector unions died. And the Indianapolis Star is still a conservative rag so far as I know, unlike most big city papers. It also doesn't have many Hispanics of course, but yes that is true of the region in general outside of Chicago. It also has less of a Yankee cultural population than say Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio and Illinois (Protestants from New England), which population has trended to the Dems. Just my guess at it.