Cook Political Report: 9th District “Competitive”

From the Courier-Journal:

WASHINGTON — Republican Mike Sodrel leads Indiana’s challengers for U.S. House seats in fundraising but still trails incumbent Democrat Baron Hill, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Sodrel, who lost the seat to Hill in 2006, has raised $665,703, while Hill has raised nearly $1.8 million in the 9th District race.

Whether because of the political environment or because he’s not the incumbent, Sodrel is having more difficulty raising money than in the last election. At this point in 2006, he had raised $1.8 million compared with Hill’s $1.2 million.

The Hill-Sodrel race, however, is the only one in Indiana currently viewed as competitive by the Cook Political Report, although the newsletter that analyzes political contests says Hill has the advantage.

Mike Sodrel is never going to raise more money than Baron Hill unless or until he is willing to write a check.

This being said, Baron has effectively shot himself in the head by endorsing Barack Obama and enraged a goodly portion of his own party’s base.

(Read more after the leap)

The race would not be anywhere near as competitive if Baron had held off endorsing someone, or had endorsed in line with how his district overwhelmingly voted.

In politics, you have to (as Rex Early might put it) dance with them that brung you.

The problem is that two groups brought Baron to the dance. The first group are liberals from Washington, Bloomington, and San Francisco. The second are conservative rural Democrats from places like Scott, Clark, Jefferson, Jennings, and Jackson counties.

Baron can’t dance with both of them, because they hate each other.

He has always until recently avoided having to pick between them.

And by endorsing Obama, Baron managed to do just that.

He chose. And he chose very unwisely.

It won’t be the money that will do in Baron Hill in November.

It will be conservative Democrats that don’t want to be represented in Congress by a rubber stamp for Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

(This post is also available at the Hoosierpundit)