May 2008 No. 19Table of Contents |
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Election primaries are like kid games for the most part. It’s choosing sides, and if you were ever the little runt that didn’t get picked, you know how the losers feel. There are 4.3 million registered Hoosier voters—up 8% over 2006, including 318,000 newbies—and 40% of them felt it was worth the effort to vote in Tuesday’s primaries and pick their teams. Some 180,000 cast absentee ballots, and 120,000 voted early.
The psychology of elections can fill textbooks. Some seats are vacated by people who’ve won elections before but who die, choose to retire, or want to do something else. Depending on how badly the district was gerrymandered from the last census, there may or may not be new opponents from both major parties.
Incumbents have enormous advantages: they can tout the bills they’ve passed, the connections they’ve made; plus they have money left over from previous campaigns. Challengers must get themselves known, raise some bucks, and formalize positions on problems they’ve probably thought about but never had to solve. It’s an uphill battle for them, especially if they’re going against a well-healed vote-magnet. It’s no surprise that many incumbents go unchallenged.
IN Primary. What pundits won’t be able to say for sure is why many Republicans crossed over to vote for Democrats—as Indiana holds an “open” primary—to vote for someone they hope loses or wins in November. Party officials can challenge your vote, but they can’t stop it if you switch from the party’s primary that you’ve been voting in for years.
Who does this help? Some might say Obama, as some Republicans may like him better than McCain who’s already won his nomination. Some say Clinton, seeing her as a weaker nominee against McCain. You could say the same for newspaper endorsements.
Who does this hurt? All the other candidates in the party that one usually votes for in the primary.
President. Clinton squeaked by Obama, 51%-49%. McCain had already won the Republican candidacy, yet 25% of Hoosiers voted for someone else anyway.
Pre-primary polls canceled themselves out with conflicting predictions on how the Democratic primary pie would be sliced. The public was tired of a less-than-amicable debate on issues and a media seemingly myopic on the candidates’ negatives or what their associates said than anything to do with their humanity or policy-positions. It’s a tribute to Hoosiers that a record number turned out to have a say about it at all.
Issues. For Hoosiers favoring Clinton, the top issues for the next president to address are immigration (69%), healthcare (63%), terrorism (63%), and the economy (53%). For those favoring Obama, they are education (78%), the environment (67%), and Iraq (52%). The SurveyUSA poll was taken on 4/28/08.
Congress. There were only 3 of the 9 2-year Congressional seats where Democrats duked it out and 6 where more than a solitary Republican wanted the job. Only 4 incumbents got byes. Out of Tuesday’s primaries, the Congressional match-ups for November are:
As of mid-April, five incumbents had each amassed $1Million or more in campaign contributions while no challenger had raised a half million dollars. Thus, incumbents outspent their opponents 10-to-1 or more, except in District #7 where two doctors ran major campaigns totaling $1.5M of mostly their own money.
Governor. Incumbent Mitch Daniels had no opposition in the primary and will face Jill Long Thompson in the fall. Until Lake County results were in she was trailing Jim Schellinger, but he conceded a day later after she eventually pulled out a 50.2% majority.
General Assembly. For the Indiana legislature, half of the 50 4-year State Senator seats must be filled in 2008, and of them 40% were uncontested. Seven Republicans got a pass, with no challengers in the primary or in November; three Democrats were as lucky.
All 100 2-year State Representative seats were up for grabs. Democrats had lone candidates in 62 districts with only 13 more multi-candidate races, and Republicans had 56 unopposed primary winners and 18 with contests. That means there are 25 districts so gerrymandered that neither non-incumbent Democrats or Republicans will contest them.
In 1983 Indiana ranked 28th among state legislatures in the percent of women lawmakers, with 12%. Today, though IN’s portion is up to 19%, it only ranks 36th as 10 states more have voted in greater gender shifts.
Local. The non-partisan primary elections were it for school boards around the state. There were also dozens of lawyers running to be judges as well: explain to me again why those are partisan positions.
Voter ID. The US Supreme Court decided that IN’s Public Law 109-2005 is constitutional. It requires a photo ID in order to vote November 4—a driver’s license, US passport, Military ID, IN college ID, or freebie from a Bureau of Motor Vehicles branch. This primary, a nun turned away a dozen “sisters” for failure to bring their proper photo identification.
Lobbying requires registration, whether it’s at the legislature or with state departments. If you’re getting paid at least $1,000 to contact an executive branch agency of IN state government to try to influence the outcome of a contract, a lease, financial arrangement, or a rule, you’ve got to register (and pay $50) within 15 days after making that initial visit, e-mail, or phone call. You will have to pay another $50 to file an annual report on what you did. You’ll also have to verify that you read state law governing ethics and conflicts of interests. For more details, contact Lucinda Nord.
“With a few exceptions, state finances are deteriorating, in some cases considerably. This development has presented many state lawmakers with a twofold problem: keeping their fiscal year (FY) 2008 budgets in the black and enacting balanced budgets for FY 2009.” So starts a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) that compared how states are faring amidst the current national economic troubles. Here’s Indiana’s report among the applicable states:
| State Tax | # Above Estimate |
# On Target |
# Below Estimate |
| Personal Income | 11 |
20 (IN) |
12 |
| General Sales | 8 |
22 (IN) |
16 |
| Corporate Income | 11 |
20 |
16 (IN) |
| Other | 13 (IN) |
9 |
10 |
Although 17 states reported an estimated FY08 budget gap totaling $3.2 Billion, Indiana reported no budget gap. However, 24 states estimated budget gaps adding up to $26 Billion for their upcoming 2009 fiscal years (Indiana’s starts July 1, 2008). Indiana did note “concern” for its revenue outlook for FY09 along with 34 other states, while 3 were optimistic, 10 were “stable,” and 4 were pessimistic. The NCSL report includes 2009 plans from all but 8 states including Indiana.
By the way, IN had the fourth highest number of bankruptcies in the nation in 2006 and some $839M in state and local costs for divorce and unwed child-bearing—of which 18% is revenue foregone and the remainder is court, Medicaid, child welfare/CHIP costs.
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