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Joe Donnelly was damn lucky. He was campaigning against Richard Mourdoch who made comments divorced of sanity let alone political expediency If Mourdoch and the Tea Party had not defeated Richard Lugar in the primary, we would be congratulating Lugar on re-election. I am a dyed in the wool Democrat, but I would have voted for Lugar. Since both Donnelly and Lugar are not pro-LGBT issues, I was in a lose-lose situation anyway, and in that hypothetical, I would have chosen Lugar's seniority over Donnelly.
The Indiana Democratic Party has been a failure for years. They have been coasting on the somewhat success of Joe Andrew, who was chair of the party from 1995-1999 and eventually an unsuccessful term as head of Democratic National Committee, but frankly, the kudos of Democratic success falls at the feet of one Evan Bayh, who took the pedigree of his father, Senator Birch Bayh, to be elected Secretary of State in 1986, then two term governor, and then Senator in 1999. Again, this was a spin of the wheel of genetic fortune. A young, handsome man who was bred for politics, and he happened to be a Democrat in a state full of Republicans. Frank O'Bannon benefited from the glow of Bayh (and bad Republican candidates) to win the Governor's office twice, only to die in office, but by then, things were going downhill enough in the state, that a truly qualified man, Joe Kernan, was not able to win election against Mitch Daniels. Throw in the inability to beat Dan Coats in 2011, a former Senator who hadn't even lived in Indiana since he retired in 1999 AND had been a lobbyist in the interim, there is obvious proof that the party "structure" has no structure at all.
Of course, these are the big tickets. They get the most coverage, and they allow for the aforementioned "luck" to happen most often. It is the down ticket races that are the most damning to the leadership. Granted, they could foist the blame off on the county parties, but without some sort of plan from the mothership, we end up, well, where we are now. Mike Pence has been elected Governor. This is bad for anyone who isn't a white, heterosexual male. He is an arch-conservative who will declare a culture war like none have seen - women (specifically women's health), minorities, and the LGBT community will be in the line of fire. However, not only have we handed him the Governor's mansion, we have also handed him a legislature with a Republican super-majority in both the House and Senate. That's right. The Democrats do not even need to show up for votes, because the Republicans will be able to pass anything they want, and as they have proven in Right to Work and banning all funding to Planned Parenthood, they are not above passing laws that are blatantly unconstitutional. This will get worse. Want to amend the constitution against gay marriage? Done (with a popular vote)! Want to pass a law that mirrors Arizona's policy on immigrants? Done! Any cockamamie idea that can go through will probably do so. This is a DISASTER!
How did this happen? Simple. What has the Indiana Democratic Party done to recruit new candidates? Absolutely nothing. They sit back and hope someone will step up, but unfortunately, this just does not happen. The fact that Joe Hogsett is being whispered as a candidate for mayor of Indianapolis, when he has pretty much lost every office he has run for, just shows that there is no bench in Indiana Democratic politics. Where is the fresh blood? There should be individuals in every single county being groomed to run for these offices. No matter how the district is gerrymandered, there should never be an instance where a Republican candidate runs unopposed, but it happens all the time in the legislative races. The fact remains if we had managed to defeat Mike Pence, what would John Gregg have been able to do with a super-majority? The mind boggles.
This lack of foresight and inability to build a strong party has led to complete and utter defeat. I've always said that to be a Democrat in Indiana is to be a Republican, and with the advent of the Tea Party, the Democrats had a real opportunity to stake out a place in the middle of the road. Yes, Hoosiers tend to be pretty conservative, but there is also a pretty wide swath of common sense thrown into the mix. The defeat of Mourdock is a prime example of this. Unfortunately, the Indiana Democratic Party sat back and squandered this chance. It is time to gut the party apparatus and start over. Someone needs to come in with a plan to take back the Indiana legislature, and it will have be done in the current districts. We need to find and groom new talent to run for offices statewide. We need to build a grass roots, blue collar army of people to get out the vote. Heck, bring in someone from Obama for America, at least they were able to turn Indiana blue in 2008. Continuing what we are doing is not an option. The Indiana Democratic Party has failed.
