Indiana

Sunday Stuff

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

With less than 48 hours to go before the polls open, I bring you lots of nice little tidbits of political information for your reading pleasure or consternation.

The early voting continues in Marion County.  More than 1,200 people showed up for in-person voting on Saturday and more than 19,600 people have participated.  In 2006, there were slightly more than 13,000 people who took advantage of early voting.  Although it’s hard to get a read on the breakdown of the early voting, from what I’ve been able to gather, Democrats are slightly ahead.  The word is that they are trying to build a firewall (or levee) to deal with the Republican tsunami that’s expected on Tuesday.   Case in point, the Mark  Massa for Prosecutor campaign tells me they made nearly 9,000 phone calls Saturday afternoon and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

I’m still trying to figure out the strategy behind the Indiana Democrats’ mailer in the 9th Congressional District encouraging people to vote for Libertarian Greg Knott.  The mailer promotes Knott as a conservative, but if anyone ever took a close look at Knott’s positions on issues, i.e. the environment and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you would think he was a Democrat.   This could backfire on the Dems, thus illustrating sometimes you can be too smart for your own good.

Speaking of the 9th, I’m hearing if  Republican Todd Young loses the nail-bitter race to Baron Hill, he could also be a potential pick for Secretary of State should not Charlie White not be able to serve due to his “electoral” issues.

And finally, I took a walk with a candidate Saturday morning for a couple hours in Marion County to observe retail politics up close and personal.   I was surprised at how calm people were when as he went door to door.  No yelled or screamed, “get off my doorstep!”  It did seem as if people had made up their minds about what they were going to do Tuesday and they were just waiting to go do it.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on October 31, 2010 (boomark / email).