By Brian Howey

The Howey Political Report, Indianapolis, Ind.

NASHVILLE, Ind. – First of all, the 2012 Indiana gubernatorial race is way, waaaaaaay off in the distance.

But for the party out of power for five years – Indiana Democrats – it’s sorting out time. And if the past several months are any indication, the prospects of regaining power after the Mitch Daniels era passes are unsettled at best.

In the modern era, the Democrats have had obvious heir apparents, as witnessed in 1968 when Lt. Gov. Robert Rock was in the wings, 1972 when former Gov. Matt Welsh tried to regain the office, 1976 when Secretary of State Larry Conrad was a consensus candidate, 1984 when State Sen. “Go Get ‘Em” Wayne Townsend ascended, 1988 when Secretary of State Evan Bayh was seen as the party’s savior, and 1996 when it became Lt. Gov. Frank O’Bannon’s turn.

Brian Howey

The two cycles when it wasn’t obvious came in 1980 when Townsend and Batesville industrialist John Hillenbrand III battled for the nomination, with Hillenbrand winning, and 2008. That was the cycle when first tier candidates like Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and former Speaker John Gregg saw a Daniels re-elect likely, and gave way to the mostly unknown architect Jim Schellinger and former congresswoman Jill Long Thompson, who won and then went on to run one of the worst gubernatorial campaigns in Indiana history.

The 2012 cycle is also one with no heir apparent. The closest to that standard at the beginning of the year were Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel and U.S. Rep. Baron Hill. Others include Lake County Sheriff Rogelio “Roy” Dominguez and Hammond Mayor/Lake County Democratic Chairman Thomas McDermott Jr. There’s been some speculation about U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth.

At the Democrats Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner last spring, it was Weinzapfel who seemed to generate the most buzz. But several weeks later, his star took a crippling hit when it was revealed that in a closed-door meeting with Vanderburgh County officials, he signed off on a termination of the county’s homestead credits, resulting in a $10 million tax increase. While Weinzapfel has taken steps to reinstate the credits, the situation has many powerful Democrats, including several predisposed to support him, shaking their heads.

The good news for Weinzapfel is … it’s way, waaaaaaay early.

This past week, a new spectacle emerged up north. McDermott, who seized control of the Lake County Democratic Party in audacious form last March, made a phone call that will haunt his gubernatorial aspirations. It came after one of his political captains – David Woerpel, his wife and two city employee sons – were busted for growing pot in their back yard.

McDermott became so incensed that he called Sheriff Dominguez and committed the kind of political sin that pales only to a pol beating his girlfriend at a public concert wearing a parrot head shirt: He left an angry recorded phone message:

“Roy, this is completely, completely uncalled for. Dave Woerpel is the captain of the 5th District, captain in the city of Hammond … very, very powerful, very, very political, and you guys arrested him and he had nothing to do with it. Nothing. Roy, that’s the dirtiest trick I’ve ever seen. Have a nice day.”

“The mayor’s message was so outrageous, so disrespectful,” Dominguez told the Times of Northwest Indiana’s Bill Dolan. “I wouldn’t let silence become acquiescence.” The arresting officer noted that when Woerpel’s wife was confronted, she said her husband “was golfing with McDermott.” Ouch.

Then there’s Rep. Hill’s YouTube hit coming from his Bloomington town hall last month when he admonished an IU student attempting to film the session. “This is my town hall meeting and I set the rules,” Hill told the student. “Now the reason I don’t allow filming is because usually the films end up on YouTube in a compromising position.”

Which is exactly what happened. The Bloomington Herald-Times caught the whole exchange and posted it on its website. It has logged 140,000 hits on YouTube.

So, Weinzapfel, Hill and McDermott have problems – though not insurmountable – but it’s not the kind of scenario that gives a candidate that initial thrust for statewide office.
Who’s left? Well, there’s Dominguez, who’s been criss-crossing the state in a listening tour. There may be other Democrats in the wings. Peterson now works for Eli Lilly and hasn’t issued a Gen. Sherman statement. Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, who ran briefly in 2003, is signaling to friends she’ll take a look at the race after her 2010 re-elect.

There’s plenty of time for Democrats to find a nominee, but the early going has been a minefield of their own making.

The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com

by Brian Howey

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – - Indiana experienced the most sensational political year in 2008 with the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama Democratic primary, before the nominated Democrat won the state for the first time in 40 years. An estimated 500,000 Hoosiers attended the 56 campaign rallies or town halls featuring Obama, Clinton, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin or John McCain.

What has followed has been one of the most intense and dramatic policy years in memory. The stimulus plan, health care reform, auto industry rescue, energy and carbon cap-and-trade issues are playing out vividly in the state; we have had long and special sessions of the Indiana General Assembly. President Obama has been here three times.

Brian Howey

Just in the last week, perhaps as many as 4,000 Hoosiers turned out for town hall meetings conducted by U.S. Reps. Baron Hill, Joe Donnelly, Mark Souder, Mike Pence, Dan Burton and 9th CD Republican challenger Todd Young in places like Anderson, Richmond, Columbus, Brownstown, New Albany, Middlebury, Fort Wayne, Michigan City and Bloomington. On Wednesday, hundreds of dueling pro and anti reform citizens gathered in Valparaiso and Lafayette for MoveOn candlelight vigils.

When this fascinating town hall sequence ends this month, the number of citizens approaching 10,000 will have turned out in public forums – either physically at town halls, Rotary Clubs or in telephone conference calls – to discuss health care reforms.

“The people elected me understanding what my position was on health care,” Rep. Souder told the Elkhart Truth after more than 600 people turned out in Middlebury for a marathon three-hour meeting. “The goal of this is, people want to speak.”

In Bloomington Wednesday night, U.S. Rep. Baron Hill appeared at North High School and attempted to dispel misinformation about H.R. 3200. “The proposal out there is not socialized medicine. It is not a government takeover,” Hill said to a crowd of over 800. “(There is) no rationing in this bill,” he said. “Insurance companies are rationing care.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence suggested the best move President Obama could make is to scrap all the bills and start over. “That would be the best thing he could do,” he said at Richmond’s Reid Hospital. “It would be wrong for the Democratic Congress to pass a partisan bill. The wild card in the equation is you, all of you and tens of thousands of Americans who came out in the month of August.”

A man who described himself as a Christian asked Pence if he could “imagine a compromise position where the government plays a role? I’d like to hear your response as a Christian.”

Pence said the issue is “fraught with moral issues.” He said he supported Medicare and significant increases. He suggested allowing insurance companies to sell over state lines, increasing Medicaid for people above the poverty level, and transferable tax credits that would amount to $1,000 for an individual, $2,000 for couples and $3,000 for families. “I’m not folding my arms and saying good luck there,” Pence said.

As for the Members of Congress who didn’t conduct town halls – Reps. Andre Carson, Pete Visclosky, Brad Ellsworth and Sens. Evan Bayh and Dick Lugar – my thought is, you can’t be afraid of the people.

The critical question at this point is what does it all mean and where do we go from here?

Much focus has centered on President Obama’s diving poll numbers and analyst Charlie Cook’s forecast that Democrats could lose 20 House seats in the 2010 elections. Historically, the party of the new president loses 24 seats in a first mid-term.

Barack Obama presided over one of the great presidential campaigns in history. He listened to this epic August debate and is recalibrating. He will address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday.

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, told me in Elkhart last February that the president was content to let Congress hash out the details. This week, he told Politico, “We’re entering a new season. It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done. We’re confident that we can do that. But obviously it is a different phase. We’re going to approach it in a different way. The president is going to be very active.”

The much-debated H.R. 3200 will not be the bill that lands on Obama’s desk. There will be twists in the story line, and many changes to come, but the historic moment realized in the end is a better bet than business as usual.

The beautiful part about this exercise in democracy is that so many Hoosiers entered the public square and weighed in. Thus, 2008 and 2009 will likely be years when epic politics and policy are linked.

The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com. Howey Politics Indiana intern Katie Coffin contributed to this column.

The Howey Report

By Brian Howey

INDIANAPOLIS – There sat the serene House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer at his desk before the Statehouse press corps last Thursday with a Mitch Daniels bobble head doll. Bauer tapped it and Gov. Daniels’ plaster head bobbed up and down. “The governor is here with us and he agrees with me almost all the time,” the Speaker said as laughter filled his small office.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Daniels and Bauer are worlds apart when it comes to how Indiana should be governed.

It feeds into the question of who the most powerful person in the Statehouse really is: a constitutionally weak governor seeking to radically rebuild a backwater state, or a powerful Speaker who is the bulwark for an anemic status quo, and who is motivated only by the maintenance of his own elevated political station?

Brian Howey

When the deal-making reaches true intensity next week, will Bauer, the stasist defender whose caucus has made a mockery of just about every progressive piece of legislation that has passed through its doors, win this battle and lose the war? For Daniels, who entered this session off a landslide victory and leaves it with near 70 percent approval, his legacy is at stake. His governorship will not be deemed successful unless he can achieve profound government and education restructuring.

The backdrop to this is the potential General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcies and liquidations, coupled with a steel industry collapse, whose production is the lowest since the Great Depression. There have also been two township trustee criminal convictions this past week.

Here are the key issues that must be determined by April 29:

The budget:  This is the governor’s top priority and at this writing, he is looking at a stinker. It is loaded with Obama stimulus funds he warned Bauer and Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley not to use. Daniels wants a two-year budget that is truly balanced. Bauer wants a one-year budget given the economic crisis, but the governor has no stomach for dealing with it again next year.

State revenue forecasters predict Indiana will take in $690 million less over the next two years than last December’s estimate. That doesn’t include a Chrysler liquidation that could spread to suppliers, creating a belt of Indiana counties in Northern Indiana facing jobless rates between 15 and 20 percent.  A question with no answer is what happens to those numbers with an automotive/steel collapse? Kenley’s foundation is an 8 percent budget cut plus using $2 billion in federal stimulus funds to increase education spending between 1 and 2 percent.

Unemployment Insurance: This is the issue in HB1379 most likely to create the need for a special session. A House Democrat plan put forth on Monday would saddle Hoosier employers with $1 billion to fix the shortfall, compared to the $328 million in the Senate bill, which would include some cuts to beneficiaries. This is one of those issues that got kicked down the road and now a solution must be found in crisis.

Asked how many Hoosier companies are teetering financially, Indiana Manufacturers Association President Pat Kiely answered, “There is no data available to determine how many Indiana manufacturers are on the brink, but we do know anyone related to autos, RVs and housing are in the worst positions.”

A look at Department of Workforce Development notices as of Wednesday reveal 5,527 jobs that will be lost between now and the end of June, which wouldn’t include 6,000 Chrysler jobs and related suppliers. “Passing a $1 billion tax increase as called for in the House Democrat conference committee report is clearly insane and for bargaining purposes,” Kiely said.

“Probably the right question to ask is how many employees will have to lose their jobs in every sector to pay for the tax? Employees will be impacted more than companies in most cases, which makes this tactic hard to understand and even harder to understand is why we continue to play political games with a subject that needs repairs and not rhetoric with one week left,” Kiely noted.

There is persistent speculation that Bauer is angling to blow up the UI bill and let the Obama administration deal with it. How does the idea of Washington running this sensitive fund strike you?

Education: I once viewed this as a key 11th-hour bargaining chip. Daniels might get his balanced budget or some Kernan-Shepard reforms in exchange for more education funding. Our sense at this writing is that the jobs trust issue is overshadowing the issue of increased education funding. Democrats are concerned that poorer school districts are being shorted by the Republican budget.

Kernan-Shepard: The miscalculation may have been Bauer and Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson’s decision to not choose even a few of the 27 Kernan-Shepard recommendations for passage. The complete dismissal of all Kernan-Shepard reforms sets up a dramatic political showdown for House races in 2010 that will almost certainly be played out in places like Kokomo, Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Rising Sun, Marion and Pendleton, some of which will be experiencing titanic job losses. Imagine a campaign featuring a direct contrast between Daniels and Bauer. It’s coming.

My prediction? Just as we saw during the severe recession of 1982, a special session is probably likely sometime this year once we finally understand the full implications of the auto and steel crisis.

The columnist is publisher of http://www.howeypolitics.com.