It is official. Scott Schneider won the Indiana Senate District 30 caucus on the second ballot tonight. I said in a previous post I said that I would give a rundown of the various candidates and what I did.

I will do so in the order that they fell out of the caucus.

Analysis below the fold:

Chris Douglas:

Chris has commented here on HA in the past. I think it is safe to say that his positions are certainly not mainstream conservative thought–and maybe not even mainstream Republican thought. The obvious area is in social issues where he pushes what most would say is a liberal social policy (the more charitable might say libertarian). On other issues he claims a pro-business outlook, but his actual policies allow for a more active government than conservatives would want. On the other hand, Chris has demonstrated the ability to work with many people of different points of view and bring about changes. Ultimately, my reading on Chris was that he may be an effective person, but I am not comfortable with the ends to which he would be effective. Chris dropped out of the race earlier in the day which potentially saved us an entire round of voting. (Thanks, Chris)

John Ruckelshaus:

John was the most difficult of the candidates for me to process. In our conversations I came away with a few significant impressions: 1) I like John; 2) He is very experienced and would be able to become quickly involved in the government organism–he understands the State legislative process; 3) His personal positions are all around conservative; 4) BUT he would probably be a legislator who would give in on certain areas that might be important to me in order to get things to happen. It is this last point that made my decision very difficult. John ended up being my #2 choice. Unfortunately he was the second choice of far too many and went out in the first round of voting with only 12 of 99 votes.

Ryan Vaughn:

I finally got to talk with Ryan on Sunday after many problems with the party organizations having in incorrect address for me. Ryan is a likeable young man. But that was my first impression. He is nice, but I cannot tell how strong the principles are (by that I mean his conservative principles). He seems inexperienced even though he holds a powerful position in the Indianapolis City-County Council. It rubbed me a bit wrong that he took credit for things like the Mayor taking over the Police Department. A couple of thoughts about Ryan: 1) for me he needs more time and experience–in which I would want to see evidence that he IS independent of the Marion Co. power structure; 2) It will always be difficult for me to vote for a practicing lawyer. Chris Douglas had the best line on this, “it is not exactly an underrepresented demographic.” Ryan was clearly the Marion County party choice which was evidenced by money and manpower. But he only got 37 votes in the first round and 38 in the second.

Scott Schneider:

Once Scott got my phone number (ironically at an open house at Chris Douglas’s house), he spent the most effort to talk with me regularly. One of the comments that Scott eventually made to me is that from our discussions he would be the person who would vote most like I would if I was in the Senate. I agree. The question that I always had with Scott is whether or not that would be the most effective way to get things like education reform. In the end, I decided that principle trumps pragmatism–particularly if that person can communicate the conservative message. I think that Scott can. Scott came in one vote short of a majority in the first ballot (49 votes) and apparently took all of John’s votes to bring his up to 61 votes in the second ballot to win.

I am proud to say that I voted for Schneider and look forward to seeing him advance in leadership in the Republican Senate.

Next up: why a caucus is a great way to choose our replacement (rather than an election).