This is my first diary, so I hope it is well liked. Evan Bayh has now left us with a challenging job of finding a good replacement for him. Please don’t write off this seat just yet, we do have a good shot. So I will now present my list.
*Brad Ellsworth- Popular Congressman from Evansville, who was voted most attractive member of Congress, and who has thrived in a usual conservative district. He is my top choice, and I would love to see him do it.
*Baron Hill- He is my Congressman, and a damn good one at that. He ran statewide once against Coats and despite all odds came very close to beating him. He made a name for himself by walking across the state. The problem here is that he already has two random primary challengers so his seat would be easily one by Mike Sodrel.
*Joe Donnelley- A representative from Northern Indiana, who one in with the popular wave of other dems in 2006. He ran unsuccessfully for Attorney General in the nineties, loosing the primary.
*Tim Roemer- Former Congressman from South Bend who is now U.S. ambassador to India. He is popular among conservatives and in my view would be a good candidate.
*Jon Weinsapfel- Current popular Mayor of Evansville, who is known as a Washington outsider. Although he seems more interested in a gubernatorial bid in 2012.
*Joe Kernan- The former Governor, who took over when Frank O’bannon died. He was the former Mayor of South Bend. I think he enjoys retirement too much though.
*Joe Andrew- Former DNC chair, who was originally a candidate for Governor in 2004 before Kernan decided to run.
*Bart Peterson- Former Mayor of Indianapolis who was defeated in 2007. I am not from Indy but I don’t think he is that popular there.
*Jill Long Thompson- I hate to mention her but I will anyway. She is a former Congresswoman and undersecretary of Agriculture who had her butt handed to her by Mitch Daniels in 2008.
*Vi Simpson- State Senate minority leader who originally ran for Governor in 2004 before Kernan decided to enter.
*Jim Schellinger- A Indianapolis architect who barely lost the 2008 democratic primary to JLT.
*Joe Hogsett- I heard some people mention him. He is the former SoS. Although he served in the mid nineties.
*Patrick Bauer- The State house speaker who is not that popular, but hey who knows?
I could go on but these are the best I could think of off the top of my head. I really hope it helps. BTW, I HATE EVAN BAYH!!!!!
I would like to hear what you have to say. Who should take Bayh’s place?
Update
Cross Joe Kernan off the list, although I really didn’t think he would run anyway.
Another Update
Also cross Jonathan Weinzapfel off the list, I think he has his eyes on a gubernatorial run or a run for Congress if Ellsworth makes the plunge. Also it looks like Ellsworth is thinking it over at least, his office released the following statement. The Congressman says he will discuss the choice with his wife and family over the next few days before making a decision.
http://tristatehomepage.com/co…
Sorry yet another update
Thomas McDermott, Jr., the mayor of Hammond and chairman of the Lake County Democratic Party will seek the nomination. Also Bart Peterson is out.
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Just because nothing would be put at risk, and he would be a solid candidate. That means supporting a pro-life Dem, which for me is problematic, but doesn’t exclude him.
I agree that Joe Kernan enjoys retirement too much. He’s independently wealthy, had alrady bowed out of the governors race until Gov. O’Bannon died, and I’m sure has no desire to go to Washington.
Bart Peterson probably is damaged goods. None of us here loved him as mayor, but many miss him compared to the incompetent boob (but generally well meaning and nice guy) Greg Ballard has turned out to be).
Joe Andrew as our candidate makes my skin crawl more than Bayh getting back in the race would — or even another go-round with JLT. He’s a disloyal crapweisel who muscled his way into the Indiana delegation in support of Hillary (even though he technically was living in Maryland at the time) and then switched to supporting Obama before the primary. I think it would be impossible to find a single Democrat here who likes or trusts him.
I love Vi Simpson, and lived in her district when I lived in Bloomington. She’s been an accomplished veteran member of the State Senate, with more legislative accomplishments than anyone on your list except for Speaker Bauer, but is probably too liberal to win statewide, especially this fall.
Another person to add to your list, or any general list of anyone who might want to get back into politics, is former House Speaker John Gregg. Yes, he’s pretty conservative for a Democrat, but he’s very charismatic, a good campaigner, handles the media well, etc.
I do like his photogenic, tough guy, law and order image and the fact that he’s from downstate. He’s probably the best guy to run if we want to keep this seat even vaguely blue, and I expect he would easily crush whichever GOP boob sneaks through the primary.
My issue with him is that on many issues he’s more conservative than even Bayh. Bayh would actually be fairly liberal for Indiana if he weren’t a.) bought and paid for by Wellpoint and b.) an egomaniac. Ellsworth voted against stem cell research, against the stimulus, and for the Stupak amendment – all things that Bayh actually voted against. Bayh also voted against both Roberts and Alito, which somehow I doubt Ellsworth would have if he were in the Senate at the time.
Ellsworth is also best buddies with Heath Shuler, who is himself a proud member of The Family and all around misogynistic DINO. The possibility that Ellsworth is himself sympathetic to The Family is not implausible, and not something that Democrats need in their Senate caucus.
In short, Ellsworth is probably our best shot at keeping the seat in the D column, but he could be more of an obstructionist than even Bayh when it comes to actual Democratic priorities. I’ll vote for him if I must given the open seat nature of the race, but given that neither Hostettler nor Coats is a paragon of good campaigning, we can do better in the long term.
I’m actually not concerned about losing Hill’s seat if he runs for Senate, since the plan is for the GOP to gerrymander it into a safe R seat in two years anyway. With Sodrel there, we might have an outside shot of taking it back in a monster year. Actually, if we run Ellsworth for Senate and Weinsapfel in the 8th, the GOP might be tempted to go for the double play — keep the 8th and 9th the same as they are now, pick up the open seat in the 9th when Hill runs for Governor, and knock off the more liberal Weinsapfel at the same time.
Joe Donnelly isn’t going to run and we’ll never hold that seat again if he does. Kernan, Long Thompson, and Hogsett aren’t even worth talking about — they’re out of politics for good. Regarding Schellinger, keep in mind there’s a good reason that Long Thompson beat him in the primary. I voted for Schellinger then, but when you have all the money and establishment support and still lose to Jill Long Thompson in a primary, that should tell you that you don’t have a future in politics. I agree with the above commenter that Peterson is damaged goods — if he wants a comeback he needs to run for some lower statewide office first (perhaps SoS after Rokita jumps ship). Roemer is an intriguing possibility and would make a strong candidate, but Spencer Ackerman rightly points out that there’s no way he’d want to run. And I don’t see any point in running State Senators when we have two wildly popular Congressmen in the on-deck circle.
I think Ellsworth is by far the strongest candidate, but I think Hill would be favored to win too, and I wouldn’t count out Weisnapfel (my personal favorite on ideological issues). But honestly, if we don’t run Ellsworth, we’re throwing away our ace in the hole. Ellsworth will steamroll Dan Coats like it’s just another day at the office.
I’m not so confident about the GOP’s ability to capture this seat. It’s too late for a big gun like Mike Pence or Mitch Daniels to jump in, or even a first-tier candidate like Todd Rokita. We’re stuck with John Hostettler or Dan Coats.
Hostettler is incapable of running a campaign. His 2006 bid demonstrates that. He also has a lot of weird Ron Paul meets Jerry Falwell type of views that won’t play well statewide.
Dan Coats, well you all are smart enough to see how disastrous his campaign has been thus far. It remains to be seen how much damage all of this has done to him, but it isn’t good. I don’t think a comedian could invent a more comically insider politician than Dan Coats.
The Democrats can field anybody they want to replace Bayh. It would probably behoove them to find a youthful, outsider centrist, who can thus contrast with the cantankerous ultra-insider Dan Coats and the far-right John Hostettler as a sensible alternative.
Jim Schellinger- I don’t think “I told you so” qualifies him as a serious candidate. He didn’t run much of a primary campaign.
Jill Long Thompson- LOL
Patrick Bauer- Yeah, no.
Jon Weinsapfel- He would be a great candidate. He’s charismatic, young, has no associations with Harry Reid, and is hungry for higher office. But I think he’s less than optimal because of his lack of any clear identity regarding national issues and his lack of statewide name recognition.
Brad Ellsworth- Clearly the strongest candidate (and Democrats wouldn’t have all that much trouble holding his House seat if Weinsapfel ran), although he might be too conservative for Democrats to stomach. This guy is essentially a Republican. He voted against the stimulus, cap and trade, and health care. He sides with people like Sheriff Arpaio and Tom Tancredo on immigration. He’s socially conservative.
Baron Hill- Hill actually almost won against Dan Coats in 1990, back when he was some obscure State Representative. I’ve been impressed by the guy when I saw him at a town hall. He’s a very tough campaigner. He is also very good at winning in conservative areas as a liberal. Nate Silver talks about this sometimes, about how some Congressmen manage to get elected in conservative areas as liberals. The Dems would probably lose his district, though.
Joe Donnelly- I also once saw Joe Donnelly at a town hall meeting at Notre Dame, where he was ambushed on abortion, and he held his own. But Donnelly is a very locally-oriented type of politician. I don’t really see him going on MSNBC or talk shows to tout his candidacy. He wouldn’t be a bad pick, but ultimately I don’t think he is suited for higher office.
Joe Andrews- Not a good idea. He’s not very well-liked outside of Democratic circles.
Bart Peterson, Joe Kernan, Joe Hogsett- No offense to them, but they’re all has-beens.
Sorry, this went on a little longer than I anticipated. But to sum up, I feel that Baron Hill is the strongest candidate that Democrats can offer. Have him move to the right in some future votes and he should be able to hold his own against Dan Coats or John Hostettler.
Brad Ellsworth is certainly good on paper, but I don’t know how you can get the statewide party structure to rally behind a guy that far to the right. I suspect that if he’s the Indiana DNC’s standard-bearer in 2010, he wouldn’t be able to unite all the disparate elements of the IN DNC, from blacks in Indianapolis/Gary to latte liberals in Bloomington.
I forgot about him. He’d be a pretty strong candidate as well, although he’s a fairly obscure figure at this point. It’s definitely not good to field someone who comes into this without many remaining political connections or name recognition.
Congressmen Peter Visclosky and Andre Carson.
Ellsworth for Bayh’s seat. Hill should wait until 2012 to run for governor or Lugar’s seat if he retires. If Obama is popular once 2012 runs around, Hill can run with Obama’s GOTV machine behind him boosting Dem turnout in the Indianapolis and Lake County areas.