Senate Challengers Stand for Nothing but Trump

You guys are not going to believe what one of these challengers in the state Senate race posted over the weekend. It’s something I’ve been talking about for a while now, which is this simple question: what are these people actually all about, and how are they going to vote in ways that benefit your life? That’s the question you should ask every single person running for public office. What are you about? And what specific votes are you going to take that benefit me? Most of these people — whether they’re running for local office, state office, or federal office — never think that through. In many cases they’re running out of opportunity, or they’re running because they want to be somebody. Actual public policy is hard. It requires work. Every decision you make moves levers, and when you move one lever it affects something else somewhere else. You have to read. You have to study. You have to engage. You have to really think things through if you want to make a difference with public policy. But a lot of these people don’t want to do that because it’s hard. It’s a lot of reading. It’s a lot of work. And often they don’t understand the policies in the first place. So I come back to these six challengers — and there are probably more across the state — but six specific challengers who are taking on incumbent Republican senators over redistricting. They don’t try to hide it. They don’t make any bones about it. They were recruited to run by the Trump movement, by Turning Point USA, and by other groups that are angry about the redistricting decision in Indiana. That’s it. If that redistricting fight had never happened, many of these people would not be running for office at all. One of the candidates even admitted it. Trump tweeted his name, and he basically thought, well, I guess I should run. Then he quit because it was really hard. Then he unquit and got back in. These are the kinds of unserious people we’re talking about. Think about that for a minute. A guy runs because the president tweeted his name. He doesn’t know what’s involved. He doesn’t know what the job requires. He doesn’t know how difficult the campaign is. He jumps in anyway. Then he realizes running means traveling a multi-county district. It’s a big district. It’s a lot of work. It’s really hard. And suddenly he’s out. Is that the kind of person who is going to go to the Statehouse and battle for you against someone like Rod Bray, the Senate leader? Is that someone who will stand up for you when the chips are down? Of course not. He didn’t even understand what running involved. He couldn’t even make up his mind about whether he wanted to run. So do you really think he’s going to read complicated legislation? Do you think he’s going to understand public policy? Do you think he’s going to push back when it matters? No. And that’s the reality with these six challengers. They’re running for Trump. They’re not running for you. They’re not running to represent you. There’s no real policy agenda that any of them are talking about. And that’s incredibly frustrating because there are so many issues right now where the incumbents have absolutely failed. You could knock on doors and talk about property taxes. You could talk about energy bills. You could talk about Medicaid failures, corruption in government, tolling I-70, or problems with public education. There are countless issues that affect people’s lives and their pocketbooks. But none of these challengers are talking about those things. They’re shapeshifters. The only message is: the incumbent is bad because he didn’t support Trump on redistricting. But think about that logically. Trump is term-limited. He cannot run again. Redistricting has already failed. And by the time it would come up again, there will be completely different elections and completely different circumstances. So what exactly are you running on? What policies has Trump proposed that Indiana has rejected? In fact, Indiana recently mirrored key parts of Trump’s federal tax agenda in the state tax code. They already aligned with it. Whether you agree with that or not, the point is the state is already largely supporting Trump’s agenda. My argument here is simple. These challengers aren’t telling you what they’ll do for you. They’re telling Trump how they’ll support him. And that doesn’t help you at all. You should be hearing about property taxes. You should be hearing about energy costs. You should be hearing about tolling across Indiana. You should be hearing about Medicaid spending, corruption in government, and problems in public education. All of these things affect your life. But we’re hearing none of it. That brings me to a tweet from Brenda Wilson, who is challenging Greg Goode in the Terre Haute area. Greg Goode voted against redistricting. Now, I’m not a Greg Goode fan. I’m not endorsing him. But I know what Greg Goode is. He has a voting record. You can examine it. You can debate it. You can criticize it. Brenda Wilson, however, posted a tweet with a photo of herself standing with an older man. The caption reads: “Meet Ralph, District 38 constituent. Ralph is a proud supporter of Donald Trump and will continue to vote for the Trump agenda on May 5th. I cannot wait to meet you all.” That’s the entire tweet. So my question is simple. What does that mean? What does Ralph supporting the Trump agenda have to do with anything you would actually do in the Indiana Senate? Don’t say redistricting. That fight is over. And even if all six challengers won their races, it still wouldn’t be enough votes to change redistricting. Most Republican senators voted against it because their actual constituents didn’t want it. Indiana has always had an independent streak. Hoosiers don’t like Washington telling them what to do. So again, the question remains. What are you going to do for me? Redistricting doesn’t help me. We already have Republican majorities in the Indiana House and Senate, and we have a Republican president. And what did those majorities just do in Washington? They passed a massive spending bill that adds trillions to the national debt and distributes benefits to very specific groups. How does that help me? It doesn’t. And these Senate challengers are missing an enormous opportunity. Even if they win, what exactly are they winning? They’re entering office with no agenda. Imagine if all six of them were running on property tax reform. Imagine if they were running on lowering utility bills. Imagine if they were running on fixing Medicaid or cutting government waste. Then when they got to the Statehouse, they could say to Senate leadership: look at the mandate we received from voters. Look at what people voted for. Instead, they’re running on loyalty to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump already holds the office he’s going to hold. The Indiana Senate has very little impact on that. This is a completely wasted opportunity. Lawmakers should never be subservient to any politician — especially someone in Washington who has limited impact on state policy. But that’s exactly what these challengers are doing. They’re running on doing whatever Trump wants. Even if it doesn’t help you.