Zoeller favored:

Of the five open state attorney general seats up for election Tuesday, Democrats are expected to win all of the races but one — the one seat currently held by a Republican, polls indicate.

Democratic candidates for attorney general are expected to win in Missouri, Montana and Ohio. In Oregon, where no Republican ran for the seat being vacated by Attorney General Hardy Myers, the Democratic candidate is all but guaranteed a win.

The one open seat where the Republican candidate is favored to win is in Indiana, where Greg Zoeller, the chief deputy to Attorney General Steve Carter is vying to succeed his boss.

Zoeller is running against Democrat Linda Pence, a high-profile Indianapolis attorney. Zoeller leads Pence 30 percent to 24 percent in a recent Howey-Gauge Poll.

Interestingly, Zoeller leads Pence by six points in a state where Republican presidential nominee John McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by just two points, according to the same poll.

The Howey-Gauge Poll of 600 likely voters was conducted October 23 and 24, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent.

Good news, even if the site has an awful photo of Zoeller (his campaign website really needs a downloadable press kit with a good photo in it).

From WISH TV:

INDIANAPOLIS – A Statehouse scandal is now an issue in the race for attorney general. Democrat Linda Pence is under fire from Republicans for her role in an old case.

When State Senator Sam Smith went to court six years ago accused of tax evasion, Linda Pence was his defense attorney. Smith eventually made a plea deal and paid his back taxes, but the case is back in a campaign commercial purchased by Indiana Republicans that criticizes Pence’s choice of clients.

Both the Pence and Greg Zoeller (R) campaigns have traded attack ads. The Pence campaign said it welcomes comparisons.

“People come to Linda Pence because she’s good and she’s effective and she’s a fighter and she wins. So we’re not surprised at all that they’re gonna attack Linda’s clients. Her shoulders are broad, she can take that,” said Joel Miller of the Pence campaign.

Meantime Republicans believe Sam Smith could be a deciding factor in a close race.

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Heh:

But the truth is, even if Linda Pence had NO new ideas for the office, you’ll notice that NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY has said Greg Zoeller is a better lawyer than Linda Pence. Because they can’t. They just can’t.

They can. I can. I have.

Greg Zoeller and Linda Pence have a history. They have encountered each other in the legal arena before. Linda Pence’s client was the paving firm Rieth-Riley, which was a codefendant in the largest corruption case in Indiana history.

Rieth-Riley settled out of that case. Greg Zoeller and Steve Carter won. Linda Pence lost.

History tells us who got the better of that encounter; I think it says a lot about who will make a better attorney general.

And, no, don’t feed me some line about it being expedient for Rieth-Riley to settle out. Linda Pence was unable to defend her clients or to prevail on their behalf. That Rieth-Riley may have caved because Carter and Zoeller squeezed them over their other state contracts is icing on that cake (and rapidly disspells any notion that Zoeller is insufficiently zealous).

Regardless, Linda Pence can be as zealous as she wants in her defense of drug dealers, convicted murderers, corrupt CEOs, corrupt politicians, and so forth. She’s an Indianapolis trial lawyer (and a liberal trial lawyer at that). It’s expected. That doesn’t make her qualified to be attorney general; it makes her qualified as the lawyer of choice of Hoosier criminals, not as someone tasked with keeping them in jail or bringing them to justice.

The Indy Star gives the AG race some ink and finds that Linda Pence is, well, not exactly of the sort of even-handed temperament you’d want to have in an attorney general:

Zoeller praised [Pence] as “a very passionate advocate.”

When asked to name one of Zoeller’s strengths during a separate interview in her office looking out from a high floor of the Indiana Square tower in Downtown Indianapolis, however, Pence paused — then said she couldn’t think of one.

Linda Pence’s answer does not surprise me, and Greg Zoeller is too kind.

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Northwest Indiana Attorney General Debate

AG hopefuls to debate in Hammond

Democrat Linda Pence and Republican Greg Zoeller will debate at Purdue Calumet on Tuesday, October 21st. Of course I can’t find anything about this on Purdue Cal’s website, but it is in the NWI Times. What’s up with local colleges not posting political events on their public calendars? Recently Bob Barr spoke at Valparaiso University and not a word about was to be found on the Valpo website. Oh well. Sorry to get on a tangent.

The debate will take place at noon on the Hammond campus. Further details are pending. Zoeller, who defeated Valparaiso mayor Jon Costas as the Republican Indiana AG nominee, specifically pushed for the debate to held in Northwest Indiana. NWI Connect fully supports Greg Zoeller for AG! Be sure to watch the debates i

Can Linda Pence Say This About Corruption?

ZOELLER WILL SEEK ENHANCED PUBLIC CORRUPTION AUTHORITY

Priority to restore and retain public trust with transparency

(INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA) – Greg Zoeller, Republican candidate for Attorney General will seek additional authority for fighting public corruption by the Office of the Attorney General. “Fighting public corruption will be a priority in the Office of the Attorney General,” said Zoeller. “Our goal will be to provide greater public confidence in the handling of taxpayers’ money.”

Zoeller noted it is the statutory duty of the Attorney General to collect public funds following the certification of an audit by the State Board of Accounts (SBOA). During 2007 the SBOA certified over 50 audits to the Office of the Attorney General for collection. These include cases of theft and embezzlement of public funds by those entrusted with the responsibility over the money. Other cases involve poor record keeping and mismanagement of public accounts.

Zoeller said the Public Corruption Unit within the office would only handle those cases involving a breach of trust for personal gain and not cases involving accounting errors that required regular collections efforts. Under Zoeller’s proposal the Office of the Attorney General would seek additional authority:

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The NWI Times has an article about the AG race:

Democrat Linda Pence on Friday accused the Republican Indiana attorney general and his chief deputy, Greg Zoeller, of dragging their heels on a region corruption case in furtherance of their political careers.

Pence, who is battling Zoeller to become the state’s next top lawyer, sharply criticized the progress GOP Attorney General Steve Carter has made in a 2004 federal civil lawsuit he filed to hold former East Chicago officials financially responsible for a 1999 sidewalks-for-vote scheme.

“If there’s a corruption case in Indiana, it will not take me nine years and still not have it done,” Pence said in a meeting with The Times. “I could have had this done in two years, easy.”

Linda Pence either just doesn’t get it, or she’s deliberately trying to be misleading. I’m disinclined to think she is stupid, so the latter must be operative here.

The East Chicago corruption case, involving Democrat Bob Pastrick’s “sidewalks-for-votes” scheme, has 27 defendants and is being pursued under the RICO statue. That’s a lot of defendants, and RICO cases tend to be more complex than the sort of average case that can be solved in an hour on Law & Order or be the subject of pithy snark by William Shatner on Boston Legal.

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From the NWI Times:

Stopping in Crown Point Monday, two statewide GOP candidates announced how they would support the governor’s initiative of restoring discipline to classrooms.

Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Tony Bennett and Attorney General candidate Greg Zoeller praised Gov. Mitch Daniels’ idea of providing legal immunity for teachers who “act in good faith to preserve order in their classrooms or other school settings.” Daniels, who is seeking re-election against Democrat Jill Long Thompson, wants to ask the General Assembly to pass the proposed law next year.

Zoeller said school boards often have trouble with the cost of defense, which can run around $20,000, so many school boards opt for settling. He said once the new law is passed, if a teacher is threatened with litigation and the school board decides that the teacher acted appropriately, then he has a client.

“I’m going to come in with everything I’ve got,” he said, adding neither the teacher nor the school board will be financially responsible for the defense. “There won’t be any settlements … We don’t settle cases.”

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Just think, they’re all so smart and interesting…

I guess that makes everyone else so stupid and boring…

Isn’t it funny how people who are smart and interesting invariably turn out to be Democrats? That was the reaction I had when I found out that Linda Pence was the Democratic candidate for Attorney General of Indiana.

Let me say a couple of disclaimers right off. I’m not from Indiana. I don’t know what the issues are in this race. I don’t know anything about what’s going on in this campaign.

But I do know Linda Pence. I’ve known her as a lawyer for many years. She is really smart and tough as nails. She just seems like the kind of lawyer’s lawyer any state would want to have as its Attorney General.

I never really knew anything about her partisan political affiliations until I recently found out she was running as a Democrat for the Indiana AG. Again, all I knew was that she is a great lawyer and a smart, funny, and interesting person. It should have been obvious that she was a Democrat.

She’s no relation to the right-wing nutjob Mike Pence who is a Congressperson in Indiana. And I see that the Wall Street Journal recently took a swipe at her for being a “trial lawyer” who would be tough on corporations. Sounds like a pretty good endorsement to me.

Anybody who is in Indiana should know that they’ve got a great AG candidate in their state.

Only lefty crazies would think that a trial lawyer with a reputation for defending corrupt Democrats would make a good attorney general.

Now, I haven’t posted much about Linda Pence lately (something for which I intend to remedy soon with yet more information on her shadiness), but let’s review her record for a bit.

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                                                                                                            Republican Candidate for Attorney General Greg Zoeller was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal today. You can view the editorial here or read below.

Challenging Spitzerism at the Polls
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
August 1, 2008
wsj

Take one part ego, one part ambition and one part lawyer, mix it with an office that has few restraints on power, and you’ll end up with the worst sort of state attorney general. Take Dan Greear, and you’ll have a man at the front of a nascent electoral movement to change the formula.

Mr. Greear is the 40-year-old Republican lawyer working to unseat West Virginia’s entrenched top prosecutor, Darrell McGraw. His quest has become a case study in the opportunities, and pitfalls, of an upstart reformer challenging an incumbent attorney general who, like New York’s Eliot Spitzer, has cemented his position through populism and political patronage.

It’s also an insight into a new wave of reformist candidates across the country. As state attorneys general have become more brazen with their power, and as outside groups have started shining a light on their backroom practices, voters have become uneasy. It’s this sense of disquiet that candidates like Mr. Greear are tapping into as they promise to refocus lawsuits, rein in the tort bar and restore a sense of justice to prosecutorial office.

In Indiana, Greg Zoeller, the chief deputy for the current attorney general, is running for the top slot and touting the fact his office has never been close to trial lawyers. His opponent, Democrat Linda Pence, is a trial attorney. In Missouri, GOP state Sen. Michael Gibbons is fighting for an open seat and promising transparency in office. In North Carolina, in a strange twist, a pro-business Democrat is defending his seat against a trial-lawyer Republican. Ethics is also figuring in attorney general races in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

From the NWI Times:

The two candidates for Indiana attorney general are sparring over the role a public construction contractor could play in the upcoming racketeering trial against former East Chicago city officials.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Greg Zoeller, whose office is prosecuting the civil case, said employees of the contractor will play a “critical” role in the trial — which could mean company officials probably will want their attorney, Linda Pence, at their side during the case.

Pence is the Democratic candidate for attorney general, and Zoeller is the Republican candidate. The election is in November, and a trial date for the case has not yet been set.

“If you’ve been involved in a specific case … you can’t represent both sides,” Zoeller said.

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