Brian Howey: Plop-plop, fizz-fizz, Hoosiers are in a protest mood

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - I’ve been writing this column since 1985 and I’ve never witnessed more Hoosiers protesting a wider array of issues at the same time. The summer of discontent and an anti-incumbency mood is at its most pronounced since 1994.

On Monday, dozens of tax protesters were tossed out of the Indianapolis City-County Council meeting as it voted in $90 million in new income taxes. Anti-war protesters sat outside the office of U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky with empty shoes, symbolizing those killed in Iraq. They want Visclosky to sign an effort by U.S. Rep. John Conyers to seek the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh is scheduled to meet with Code Pink anti-war protesters on Aug. 21 at the Lake County Government Center.

Environmentalists are calling for the ouster of IDEM Commissioner Tom Easterly over news that BP can increase discharges into Lake Michigan, a mile away from where Hammond and 10 other cities draw drinking water, drawing rebukes from Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich.

In Muncie, organizers conducted a “Jam In” last Thursday, designed to bottle up traffic in downtown to protest high property taxes. Gibson and LaPorte County officials are bracing for the kind of tax storm that has already taken place in Indianapolis and Elkhart.

At Elkhart’s annual summer parade last Saturday, State Rep. Jackie Walorski marched with 200 supporters wearing “Eliminate Property Taxes.”  Walorski noted, “There were more than 30,000 people on the parade route that cheered us thru the entire way. Many came out of the streets to walk with us.” Walorski’s message is simple: don’t tweak the system; give us comprehensive restructuring of taxes and government.

There have already been multiple property tax protests outside the Governor’s Mansion, Monument Circle, the Indiana Statehouse and the Indianapolis City-County Building.

While the charge that Indiana is “resistant to change” is still propagated by lawmakers and the news media, just ask Chris Chocola, Mike Sodrel and John Hostettler if Hoosiers are reluctant. They all lost Congressional seats less than a year ago. Ask Billy Bright, Troy Woodruff, John Smith, Steve Heim, Carlene Bottorff and Mary Kay Budak, along with Bob Garton. They were all incumbents who lost legislative races just last year.
 

Or ask Mayors Matt McKillip of Kokomo, Fred Isch of Decatur, Gary Bishop of Ligonier, Terry Abbett of Huntington, Dan Klein of Crown Point, Linda Buzinec of Hobart, Steve Skaggs of Alexandria, James Garner of New Albany, Rob Waiz of Jeffersonville, Al Nipp of New Castle and Jim Bullard of Seymour. These 11 incumbents all lost mayoral primaries last May.

The Iraq War, high gasoline prices and the property tax meltdown have put Hoosiers in an ugly, ugly, ugly mood.

It reminded me of a speech then U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton gave to the Indiana Democratic Editorial Association in August 1994 when he said “Sometimes when I’m standing at a public meeting I feel a curtain drop between me and the people I’m talking to. I’m a politician and therefore, they say, my word cannot be trusted.” It was a precursor to the 1994 election that changed control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in four decades. The Indiana House also flipped to the GOP

Hamilton, who audibly sighed several times during that emotional speech, put a new twist on Tip O’Neill’s adage that “all politics is local.” Hamilton said, “All politics is presidential. I know the president’s name is not on the ballot in 1994, but his standing in this country is the single most important fact about this 1994 election.”

Federally, the Politico reported Tuesday: From almost any angle, Republicans are facing a Democratic financial tsunami in 2008.

This comes as President Bush has rejected calls by Sen. Richard Lugar to chart a new course and redeploy in Iraq. Earlier this week, the administration began hinting that it might take military action in Pakistan. Other reports say Vice President Cheney wants to take on Iran’s nuclear program before he leaves offices. The saber rattling comes at a time when a majority of Americans have little confidence in the Bush administration’s prosecution of the War on Terror.

The Politico reported: In the first six months of this year, Democratic federal candidates and the party’s three national committees raised $381 million compared with the $291 million for Republicans, or 57 percent more. The Democratic presidential field holds a $100 million fundraising edge on the GOP field.

The 2008 scenario is so intimidating that former congressman Mike Sodrel is indicating he won’t announce whether he’ll seek a fourth race with U.S. Rep. Baron Hill until next February, when we’ll likely know who the presidential nominees will be.

But if you’re an incumbent in 2007, you might want to take note of curious events in the Elkhart Truth newsroom almost 80 years ago. That’s when Hub Beardsley of Miles Laboratories noticed Truth reporters resisted colds and upset stomachs by mixing aspirin and bicarbonate of soda in the newsroom. And, thus, came Alka-Seltzer. Ah, yes, the elections of ’07 and ’08 … plop-plop, fizz-fizz.

Howey is publisher of The Howey Political Report at www.howeypolitics.com

Technorati Tags: Brian Howey Delaware County Howey Political Report Howey Politics Indiana Property Tax Indiana Property Taxes Indiana Tax Indiana Taxes Indianapolis Marion County Muncie Opinion Politics Tax Protests 2007

• ‹ previous
• 2153 of 3745
• next ›