Indiana

Let's end the day-- and launch into Labor Day-- with the best new Sheryl Crow song I've heard in years. My old pal, music critic Michael Snyder, turned me on to this live Zoom version (above) of "In the End" today.

Jennifer Christie is running for an open Indiana congressional seat north of Indianapolis. It's generally considered a "red" seat-- the PVI is R+9-- so, as usual, the DCCC insists on a Republican-lite politician as their candidate. That isn't Jessica, a full-throttle progressive.

IN-05 is an open seat. Rep. Susan Brooks-- a relatively mainstream conservative Republican-- is retiring. There are 15 Republicans running-- and 9 who have raised over the $5,000 that triggers an FEC report. The top-"raising" Republican, Victoria Spartz contributed $750,000 of her own money to her campaign, 98.7% of her funds.

18 term Democratic Jim Visclosky is retiring from his northwest Indiana congressional seat-- a deep blue (D+8) seat where whomever wins the primary is the next member of Congress. Districts like this shouldn't be sending GOP-lite candidates to Congress; they should be sending bold progressives.

-by State Senator Karen TallianCandidate, Attorney GeneralHeadlines in the Indiana newspapers have been consistent and recurring for more than 18 months. The story has even made national news. Curtis Hill, the Republican Indiana Attorney General, was accused of being extremely drunk at a party held at the close of legislative session, and groping 4 women: 3 young staff members and one legislator.

Indiana’s 1st congressional district is a rare deep-blue territory in Mike Pence’s home state. Incumbent Democratic Congressman Pete Visclosky-- retiring after 18 terms-- won the district by 31 points in 2018.

In a Democratic Party dominated by issues of racism and identity politics, this story has the potential to thwart Mayor Pete’s Cinderella story.
Ever since Pete Buttigieg announced As a candidate to become US President, he has been plagued with talk of being unpopular with black voters in America.

IN-05 doesn’t fit the kind of profile of a competitive enough district for the DCCC to take an interest in. But 2020 isn’t shaping up to be a normal kind of year and seats that have previously been considered safely red, could well fall in another anti-red wave.

A few days ago I asked Indiana progressive candidate Jennifer Christie if she was up for commenting on a post I was working on about the Republican war against science. Was she ever! In fact she has so much to say about it-- and even sent us a homemade video!-- that I decided to run it as a stand alone post.

Last night, Team Blue was disappointed that their candidate in NC-09 was defeated by Team Red's candidate. In a gerrymandered R+8 suburban/rural district-- where Trump had beaten Hillary 54.4% to 42.8%-- Republican Dan beat Democratic Dan by less than 2 points. Democratic Dan outspent Republican Dan $5,810,131 to $1,471,452.