Posted on September 13th, 2007 at 3:57 pm by Josh Gillespie
Daniels Rolling Out the Big Guns for His Campain

I was meeting with a candidate for public office the other day. He’s a newbie when it comes to campaigning and one of the things I told him he’s going to need to do to run a successful campaign is to put together a campaign committee. I told him that it should include some people who are big names in his particular county be they elected officials or influential business people. Looks like he should follow Governor Daniels examples. Check out this list of influential people from around the state who have signed on to his re-election committee.

“Among the 102 steering committee members are NASCAR driver Tony Stewart; former Indycar driver Lyn St. James; former Indiana University basketball star Damon Bailey; Bobby Plump, the hero of the Milan basketball squad victory of the 1950s; former baseball star Don Mattingly and Forrest Lucas, who has bought the rights to have the new Colts stadium named for his company, Lucas Oil.” (from today’s IndyStar.com)

What’s more impressive in addition to this list is that James T. Morris, former executive director of the United Nations World Food Program and current adviser to the Indiana Pacers will serve as committee chairman and Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George will serve as committee vice chairman.

Now that’s a campaign committee.

Elections, Governor | 2 Comments »

2 Responses

  1. A couple of questions:

    1. What exactly does a “steering committee” do?
    2. As much as I like the guy, what does Tony Stewart or Bobby Plump bring to the table that will actually help Mitch?

    Posted by joelharris on September 14th, 2007 at 8:48 am |

  2. Joel,

    I will answer your questions to the best of my abilities.

    1) A steering committee for smaller campaigns usually helps drive a candidates message and helps raise money. A decent list of supporters with name recognition can put a candidates campaign in the spotlight as well as help draw in campaign funds.

    For larger campaigns (i.e. statewide or Federal) larger committees are put together to show bi-partisanship and to prove a candidate has broad appeal, which I think Mitch’s steering committee obviously shows with it’s star power that crosses business and sports lines.

    2)I sort of addressed this is the prior point above, but people like Tony Stewart and Bobby Plump give Daniels broader appeal to your average Hoosier and people that Mitch can point to as supporters at rallies and other campaign stops in certain parts of the state.

    I hope that helps.

    Posted by Josh Gillespie on September 14th, 2007 at 11:09 am |

   
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to comment.
Your Reply:

Secured by Super-CAPTCHA © 2009 MLW & Associates, LLP. All rights reserved.