It's the Top of the Ticket, and the politics are getting ugly.

                                                                        
 

This year, the Secretary of State (SoS) candidates will be at the top of the Indiana ballot, because there's no U.S. Senate contest this year. That gives it an importance that it really shouldn't have. According to Google's AI summary, "The Indiana Secretary of State is a constitutional officer who serves as the state’s chief elections officer, oversees business and corporate filings, regulates the state's securities industry to protect investors, and licenses auto dealerships." Any competent person could manage the job. Certainly, the two Democratic candidates, Beau Bayh and Blythe Potter, could. Yet the contest between the two has become ugly, and the ugliness could hurt the entire Democratic ticket, no matter which candidate gets the nomination.

 

As I wrote in the last post, the candidates for Indiana Secretary of State are chosen at the party conventions. On June 6, the 2560 delegates to the Indiana Democratic Convention will choose between Bayh and Potter. And the invective between their supporters has been increasing. Potter's campaign and her supporters continue to lambast Bayh for taking money from unscrupulous people, especially Trump enabler and Jeffrey Epstein pal Marc Rowan, who's also the employer of Bayh's father, former governor and U.S. senator Evan Bayh, at Apollo Global Management, Bayh's organization has so far run a positive campaign, though some of his backers have targeted Potter, mainly because they believe her to be unelectable. 

I keep thinking about the first presidential candidate I ever voted for--George McGovern in 1972. He had an absolutely brilliant organization, with the likes of Gary Hart and pollster Patrick Caddell. They were able, albeit with the unbidden help of Nixon's "dirty tricks" squad, to vanquish Edmund Muskie and Hubert Humphrey, who would have been stronger candidates in November. They also had the advantage of being intimately familiar with the details of the 1972 nomination process because it was the McGovern-Fraser Commission that created them. Like Blythe Potter, he had the enthusiastic support of younger Democrats. But once he won the nomination, his candidacy imploded. He didn't vet his first running mate, Tom Eagleton, who later had to withdraw because he failed to mention he had been treated for depression. McGovern made gaffe after gaffe in the fall campaign, including the "Begging is better than bombing" remark (He could have said "Negotiating is better than bombing,") He ended up losing in a landslide, winning only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

McGovern's campaign was tactically brilliant, but strategically obtuse. And I see the same thing with the Potter campaign. She's been marvelously effective in electing delegates, but I don't think she has a strategy to win the general election. Beau Bayh's campaign, like Muskie's in '72, seems confident that the party establishment will put him over the top in the convention, is focusing on November. Perhaps Bayh knows something that I don't--that the party organization has the delegates to assure he's the nominee. But I'm afraid his assumption that he has the nomination in the bag could derail his campaign on June 6. The same strategy--inspiring idealistic supporters--will not work in a general election in a state where even most Democrats are moderate to conservative. Blythe Potter, at the top of the ticket, and without the money and name identification of a Bayh, could hurt those down ballot.

If Bayh wins the nomination, Potter supporters could feel the party organization "stole" it and withhold their vote in November. For example, Marion County (Indianapolis) Democratic Chair Myla Eldridge's decision to disqualify delegate candidates who voted in the Republican primary in the last election could be seen as a way to ensure Bayh's nomination. Facebook Posts from Potter supporters are getting more and more anti-Bayh, rather than pro-Potter. That brings back memories of a more recent presidential primary contest: the 2016 race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, which Clinton won, but many Sanders supporters believe was stolen, especially after Wikileaks released emails from the Democratic National Committee favoring Clinton. Still. Clinton won 34 state primary and caucus contests, compared to Sanders's 23, while Clinton bested Sanders in the total primary vote by 16,917,853 to 13,210,550 (Wikipedia) The Cooperative Congressional Election Study estimated that 12% of Sanders voters voted for Donald Trump in November. While support from Sanders voters was not the only factor that won Trump the Electoral College that year, it was a factor. In retrospect, Clinton could have done more to placate her rival--for instance, she could have chosen, say, Oregon senator Jeff Merkley, the only senator to back Sanders, as her running mate. And Sanders should have given Clinton more than a lukewarm endorsement. In 2020, Sanders, who personally liked Joe Biden, gave him a much more enthusiastic endorsement, and it showed in November.

I won't be among the delegates meeting in Indianapolis June 6. There were 60 candidates running for the 41 delegate slots from Elkhart County. I didn't make the cut. The main reason is my name--the list as alphabetical, and I was near the end. On the voting machine I used, I had to page through four screens to get to Wylder.  Everyone in the first half of the alphabet made the cut. The second reason is that I'm not from Goshen, a town with a highly organized Democratic Party. And a possible third is that I publicly supported Beau Bayh both on social media and in a letter to the editor in the Elkhart Truth. I don't know whether that was a factor, but Potter has many enthusiastic supporters in Elkhart County.

I'm still urging delegates to support Bayh, who has the name identification and the campaign war chest to compete in a statewide election. And I still believe Bayh should return some of the questionable money he's received, especially the $25,000 from Rowan. But his failure to return the money isn't enough for me to switch my allegiance to Potter, who's virtually unknown outside of progressive circles and has lost the only two general elections she's run in--for town council in Bargersville and Johnson County Council.

But once the delegates make their decision, there needs to be reconciliation. I've been a Democrat long before I was old enough to vote, and I've seen the proverbial circular firing squad all too often. If Bayh wins, and I think this is likely because of his strong union support and backing by party leaders, he and the party need to extend an olive branch to Potter and her supporters. Perhaps Potter should be offered the nomination for Comptroller of Treasurer, which are also nominated by the convention. If Bayh gets the SoS nomination, he'll need the Potter supporters if he wants to win in November.

Should Potter win the nomination, she'll need to reconcile with the Bayh supporters after waging such a negative campaign against him. Blythe Potter can be charming, and she'll need every ounce of that charm if she gets the nomination.

P.S. Since I began writing this post, things have changed on the Republican side. The current SoS, Republican Diego Morales, who's been plagued with scandal even before he was elected in 2022, has now lost the support of Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Senator Jim Banks, who are now supporting Banks's staffer Max Engling, who has just entered the race. Engling may not have name recognition, but he'll be harder to beat than Morales. Bayh has a path to victory, not only for himself, but for those down ballot. It's still the top of the ticket.