Bedford Man Drops Daniels Primary Challenge; JLT’s Campaign Still in Question
It looks like La Ron Keith’s declared primary challenge to Mitch Daniels, the only such bid on the radar, is not to be after all.
From the Associated Press:
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A retired firefighter from Bedford has dropped his bid to run for governor as a Republican.
La Ron Keith announced in September that he would run, but issued a release Monday saying that he was in an automobile accident this past summer that resulted in injuries making it difficult to walk.
He said he had planned on getting necessary signatures to get on the ballot, but the pain suffered in the wreck prevented him from doing so. He said he has decided to support Gov. Mitch Daniels.
I have not heard of anyone else gathering signatures on the Republican side for a bid, so it’s probably safe to say that Daniels will be unopposed.
The only question, when it comes to the gubernatorial primary, is whether Jill Long Thompson will get enough signatures by today at noon to be on the ballot.
As of yesterday, Fort Wayne News was reporting that she still needed an estimated some 470 signatures across the state in order to qualify to run.
On Valentine’s Day, last week, Howey noted that she still needed almost a thousand signatures, so her people have made up half of that gap over the weekend.
Given that level of progress, it is probably premature to assume that she will have insufficient signatures in time (though I wouldn’t rule it out).
Schellinger, it has been reported, still needs “hundreds” of signatures in the 8th District.
He will probably have little difficulty getting them.
It is my understanding that Schellinger requested assistance from the various county parties in obtaining sufficient signatures for his campaign.
Jill Long Thompson apparently made no such request (or if she did, it was not made to people in counties down this way).
That’s probably very symbolic of the central failing of her campaign thus far; she has run not merely against the establishment in Indianapolis, but run against everyone by effectively not engaging in outreach to many county parties that might otherwise be receptive.
This post is also available at Hoosierpundit.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I was at the Lake County Voter Registration office doing some work for another campaign and I overheard that Schellinger had only had about 100 signatures certified from that county. Now, that was a couple of weeks ago and I’m sure his campaign has since made great progress in Lake County, but it illustrates the fact that the Governor and his team have been far more adept at getting signatures even in somewhat unfriendly parts of the state (read Toll-Road country).