Archive for the ‘Elections’ Category

Isn’t it a bit ironic to warn against pointing fingers and infighting, and then engage in a steaming load of it yourself?

Where to begin.

Vice presidents do not win or lose elections, and experience was not a winning message in a year like this. Hillary Clinton can tell you how well experience worked as a campaign argument.

Ultimately, at the bottom of the “blame Palin” phenomenon is the assumption that things would have been better with a different nominee. Who, I ask, would have been a better nominee?

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Election Day has come and gone and my Political Party’s nominee for President has lost. I am disappointed but not disheartened. I am looking forward to the debate within the Republican Party to find our true core again.

A couple of things first, congratulations to President-elect Obama and his supporters. In 2000 and 2004 I was dismayed by the lack of respect and abundance of contempt that President Bush (and those of us that supported him) received from those that lost. Regardless of the deep and substantive differences I have with President-elect Obama it would be a mistake to not recognize how historic his election is. He is the first African-American President and represents the completion of another chapter in America’s troubled history on racial equality. His campaign shattered traditional models of volunteer mobilization, fundraising and technology use. All of which are good things for American democracy. I am sure that in the coming months I will have strong words for him in difference of policy but there will be plenty of time for that.

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No, I don’t think so, but I am finding a bit of humor in that Barack Obama won the presidential election barely 48 hours ago and people already wonder where their money is.

Indianapolis - Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown to control the crowd.

The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.

“I want my money today! It’s my money. I want it right now!” yelled one former campaign worker.

A former spokesman for the Obama campaign said 375 people were hired as part of the Vote Corps program and said people signed up to work three-hour shifts at a time. Three hours of canvassing got workers a $30 pre-paid Visa card.

The campaign workers are starting to get paid albeit apparently less than they were expecting, according to the link.  And we all know the Obama campaign certainly has/had enough money to pay them.

Maybe this is why most campaigns use unpaid volunteers to do canvassing.

On behalf of all of us at Hoosier Access, I want to give a hearty thank you to Michael Davis and everybody at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.  Without them, we couldn’t have given you the kind of coverage we provided last night.  We were able to work together as a cohesive unit to provide you, the reader/viewer the most comprehesive coverage of Indiana State House races, assessor referendum updates as well a intriguing looks at some competetive national races to provide you unique coverage with a Hoosier flair.  (And the Jimmy John’s…the sub shop not the registered Lake County voter..and Red Eye Cafe were really good too!)

In our continuing quest to give you the best coverage of Indiana politics and in light of our teaming up with the Indiana Chamber, I encourage all of our readers to check out the Chamber PAC’s General Election Results Report.

Click the picture below.

(Post updated to reflect Democrat Scott Reske’s victory in HD 37 after barely holding off Republican challenger Kelly Gaskill)

Here is a note to my fellow conservatives and Republicans.

I did not have the highest of expectation for last night.  I had hope that John McCain might some how pull off a miracle (because really that’s what he needed to win), but it wasn’t a lot of hope.  And like many of you who may have stayed up fairly late (after the webcast which ended at midnight, I went out and picked up yard signs to get some much needed alone time) I’m still recovering from yesterday’s action.  But I came to this conclusion.

It’s time to face the facts.  Barack Obama will be our 44th president.  And a historic congratulations should be sent his way.  But we should take solace in the fact that Democrats did not net major gains in the House or get their filibuster proof Senate, though they could still up with (a worst case scenario) 59 seats.

But there were some positives for us as well last night.  Governor Daniels smoked Jill Long Thompson (no surprise there) and Greg Zoeller and Tony Bennett won their statewide races.  The Indiana House will end up with only one seat gained by the Democrats after much hand wringing they could end up with as many as a three to four seat gain. On the congressional level.  Everybody stayed the same.  Many thought Congressman Souder could be a loss in the Republican column, but he showed his tenacity and didn’t just win by a small margin, he kicked his young upstart opponent to the curb.

But now onto my message.

Fellow Republicans, this is no time to give up.  This is also no time to resort to childish pettiness, bemoaning and name calling that the left resorts to when they lose.  This is a time to step up!  We do have a lot of ground to make up nationally, and while our state still leans red, it certainly is becoming a closely and evenly divided state.

We need to re-energize our base and return to what made our party great!  I encourage our state and national Republicans to return to the principles and virtues of the Contract with America.  We need to raise the level of discourse on the issues that matter most to Americans at this time; the economy and energy independence.  And while I believe social values cannot be ignored (though we must never give up on the issue of Abortion), we must understand, as a Party, that in these tough economic times, voters are thinking mostly with their wallets.  We must return to a message of fiscal restraint.  We must hammer the message of an “all of the above’ approach to energy independence.  We must hold our new President’s feet to the fire when it comes to the issues of coal and nuclear power.  Nothing can be off the table if we want to break free from the shackles of foreign oil.  President-Elect Obama seeks energy independence, but he must seek all avenues, closing off nothing.

We lost the American’s public’s faith in us when we lost our way as a party.  We have only ourselves to blame for the situation we are in.  Now is the time to make up for our past mistakes.  Now is the time to take action and to be the party of solutions and ideas.  We gave that away, but it’s time to take it back!

(But should you need it, here is Red State’s Obama Administration Survial Guide)

Hey, we can be gracious losers.

While we are still waiting on many results to come in, it appears that Obama will carry the Presidency, Mitch is crushing JLT, the Indiana State House appears to be remaining in Democrat control, the Democrats are gaining seats in the Senate (but don’t appear to be getting the magic 60 number), and there seems to be fairly little change in the House of Representatives. So here are some random thoughts that I have about what I have seen today.

• It is not a good thing when the core of our party is not who picks our nominee
• When we let the “country club” Republicans run the party, we lose
• Running a campaign on the basis of “I’m not the other guy” is not effective
• The American people have forgotten what the cost of big government is; they do not remember socialism and communism
• We cannot rely on “disaffected” Democrats to bring in the vote for Republicans, they must be won
• Scurrilous charges need to be answered
• The Democrats ground game has caught up to the Republican ground game
• Polling was largely correct
• George W Bush was the gift that kept on giving to the Democrats
• It will now be a huge challenge to regain control of “voting irregularities” as ACORN, etc. will be largely unchecked for at least two more years
• We are no longer a racist country, right?
• If you are going to mess up campaign finance, you might get burned by it
• Indiana voters vote on personalities and not on ideas
• Reapportionment and redistricting in 2011 will be critical for the future of governance
• My hopes of working toward fundamental education reform will have to wait for at least two more years
• The reaction to this election is NOT to move to the left

Update from Hendricks County, Indiana.

Lincoln Twshp - Precinct 2
Brownsburg, Indiana
Polling location: American Legion Hall, Main Street

As a Precinct Committeeman and my wife Ronna being my Vice, we were there this morning to open the poll and get things set up (coffee for workers, breakfast… etc.)

The line started forming at 5:20am. When the poll officially opened at 6am this morning, there were more than 60/70 people in line. The line wrapped the room and stretched out into the parking lot.

It was an incredible sight. Never before in my life time have I seen a line like that to start before the poll opened!

More throughout the day…

The Polls Are Now Open!! (In the Eastern Time Zone of Indiana)

As many of us Directors and Contributors to Hoosier Access have many assorted duties on Election Day including poll workers, and preparing for the election results show after the polls close.

So we likely won’t be around much to provide updates throughout the day.

This is your Election Day 2008 Live Thread. It will run from 6 AM to 6 PM.

Let us know how your voting experience went, or if you noticed any shenanigans. You can email us tonight at Election2008 [AT] HoosierAccessRadio.com

If you see the post below, Steve Dalton will have updates on his blog with what shapes up to be a lot of good info from NW Indiana.

We Republicans have been dealing with a lot of difficult situations over the last few weeks (or a couple of years, really). Heading into tomorrow, if we are to believe the polls, we are in for a long day. But it is difficult to know what will really happen. There are many questions as to the validity of the polls; what direction the support is breaking; and who these undecided voters are and who they will be voting for.

Since we do not know what will happen, my encouragement to Republicans is to get out and vote. Be bold. Support who you believe will do the best for our country. I leave you with a quote from Winston Churchill in the dark days of 1941 (via RedState):

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done.

Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.

But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period …this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Not my words, but the words of Democrat New York Congressman Jerry Nadler.

The follow up questions by the constituents is valid, such as if Obama didn’t have the political courage to leave his church, how could he have the courage to stand up to our enemies.

Simple question.  Deserves and honest answer.

(H/T - Red State)

I was going to type up a lengthy closing argument for as to why I am voting for John McCain. I may still do so. But it would be hard to encapsulate those reasons better than Jay Nordlinger has done with this short post over at The Corner:

There are a lot of people who didn’t like Edmund Morris’s biography of Reagan, which was authorized — they said it was a failure, or at least a missed opportunity. I don’t know. I didn’t read it. But I do know this: Morris had one insight into Reagan, and it was perfectly observed.

Reagan spent his entire life standing up to the bully. From boyhood on, he interposed himself between the bully and the innocent. He stood up to the bullies in his schools. He stood up to the Communists in Hollywood, and to the coercive unions. He stood up to the student radicals and their abettors. He stood up to the Soviets.

He simply stood up.

In the world today are a lot of bullies to stand up to: al-Qaeda, the mullahs, the North Koreans, the Chinese Communists, the Castro brothers, Chávez. John McCain will almost certainly do it. Barack Obama will almost certainly not.

That’s one reason — probably the biggest reason — I’m voting for McCain on Tuesday.

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