Archive for September 24th, 2007

The Indianapolis Star has an article regarding the Greg Ballard YouTube videos produced by RepublicansRadio.com:

When Dan Heiwig and his colleagues wanted to help Republican mayoral candidate Greg Ballard, they did more than make a donation. They made a commercial.

Through the power of YouTube, the Internet site where anyone can post video, Heiwig and his partners at www.republicansradio.com have now aired three campaign commercials for Ballard.

Which is three more than the Ballard campaign itself has aired.

The cash-strapped campaign has yet to run a single ad, while Democratic Mayor Bart Peterson has already spent thousands of dollars on paid television advertising.

YouTube, though, is free. And since its founding only 21/2 years ago, in February 2005, it has begun to change grass-roots politics.

Instead of talking to their neighbors or posting yard signs, candidates’ supporters and critics can take their messages to thousands — even millions — of people.

Heiwig, a 26-year-old Indianapolis Republican, said he met Ballard and was impressed. But he knew that Ballard’s matchup with Peterson was “a David-and- Goliath situation.”

“They didn’t know who he was,” Heiwig said of voters. “Now they know who he is. Now they have a video.”

Heiwig said he put up the first ad criticizing Peterson and supporting Ballard “just to see.”

He let one person know about it, he said, and word spread quickly.

“The next thing I knew, everybody got it. I thought, ‘This is great,’ ” he said.

Rest of article: IndyStar.com

I know this has nothing to do with Indiana politics, but I think we need to be aware of what’s going on around us.

Report: Ahmadinejad Tasered at Columbia University
by Scott Ott

(2007-09-24) — Columbia University promised a full investigation into charges of police brutality after today’s reported Tasering of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had come to the Ivy League school to give the annual Adolph Hitler Memorial Peace and Tolerance Lecture.

Like a similar incident at the University of Florida last week, the stun-gun assault by police followed a lengthy anti-American rant by the alleged victim, and was immediately condemned by civil rights advocates.

According to eyewitnesses, Mr. Ahmadinejad was dragged from the room shouting: “Do not make to Tase myself, slang brother man.”

It was not immediately known whether the victim was legitimately attempting to exercise his freedom of speech or if, as one unnamed witness said, “he’s little more than a publicity hound and prankster who will do anything to get news coverage.”

Hat Tip - Red State

The blogs are abuzz about a column written by Russ Pulliam in the Indianapolis Star this past weekend. In it, Mr. Pulliam makes the case that Senator Bayh is the logical, if not perfect, choice to round out Hillary’s eventual Democrat nomination for president. Then word gets out yesterday that Bayh is set to announce his endorsement for Hillary today sometime only adding more fuel to the fire that is speculation. But let’s take a look at Senator Bayh’s chances.

Mr. Pulliam put forth an argument that would endear Bayh to conservative Democrats (yes, they actually exist…somewhere) while at the same time proving that Hillary needs somebody to counteract her polarizing nature. But let’s be honest. While the argument is good for some people, most everybody should see right through the argument to Bayh’s do-nothing time as Governor to his do-nothing time as a Senator.

He is polite and charming. He’s been an articulate spokesman for fatherhood, even writing a book on the subject. As Indiana’s governor, he promoted the fatherhood movement and offered other culturally conservative initiatives. He didn’t serve liquor at the governor’s mansion and reinstated Gideons Bibles in state park inns after an overzealous official thought they violated the First Amendment.

As governor, Bayh was the opposite of Mitch Daniels, who never seems to shy from taking on controversial issues such as daylight-saving time or leasing the Toll Road. Bayh took a stab at education reform but never put a definitive stamp on a particular policy or issue. He did, however, win elections and returned Indiana to a competitive two-party state.

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From the Indy Star:

The number of Hoosiers working full time for the state since Gov. Mitch Daniels took office in 2005 has fallen by more than 4,000, partly because some jobs have been turned over to private companies.

Most state employees have seen their salaries go up, but dollars spent on the executive and judicial branches have dropped by more than $15 million.

These are among several findings in a new state-pay database The Indianapolis Star is making available on its Web site today. The searchable database includes the names, positions and salaries of 35,218 full- and part-time employees who are on the state government payroll, plus 39,887 university and 403 legislative employees in Indiana.

Together, the state, legislative and university employees are paid more than $3.1 billion.

The highest salary: $500,000 for Indiana University men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson.

Most people paid by the state make far less, with the median salary for all employees $34,694.

The database shows that shifting jobs to the private sector is reducing the amount taxpayers spend on state salaries, although those savings are offset by the contracts the state has signed with private firms to take over the work.

The Family and Social Services Administration, for instance, is paying $1.16 billion over 10 years to a company to process welfare applications. The state previously had more than 2,000 employees handling that job; now, 1,399 are working for the private company, Dallas-based ACS.

In January 2005, the state government payroll listed 35,276 active, full-time employees in the executive and judicial branches combined making more than $1.27 billion.

As of Sept. 1, the state’s payroll listed 31,259 active, full-time employees paid a total of nearly $1.26 billion. That’s 4,017 fewer employees, and $15,349,441 less in the payroll.

Those still in state government are getting paid a little better, said state Personnel Director Debra Minott.

Under a new pay-for-performance system, about 8 percent of top-performing state government workers saw their pay jump by 10 percent. Most employees received a 4 percent raise this year, while about 7 percent whose work was deemed inadequate received no pay increase.

Democrats, of course, can never be pleased when there are fewer bureaucrats around, and (true to form) the Democratic Party’s mouthpiece blog cried about it.

They like forcing bureaucrats and state employees to become members of the civil service union, because the union, in turn, contributes those taxes, err, mandatory payroll deductions, uh, dues.. yeah… dues to bankroll Democratic candidates.
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