Inside Rokita's AG Nomination
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V25, N42 Thursday, July 16, 2020 Inside Rokita’s AG nomination win With Sen. Houchin organizing an unprecedented virtual convention, Rokita upends Hill on third ballot By BRIAN A. HOWEY INDIANAPOLIS – The historic parallels between Todd Rokita’s 2002 Indiana Republican Convention victory for the secretary of state nomi- nation and his successful 2020 bid for attorney general are vivid. In both efforts, he was one of four candidates, trailed on the first two ballots, then scored a come- from-behind victory on the third. old-fashioned floor fight at the Indiana Convention Center But the 2002 and 2020 efforts were about as after a year of personal appeals in delegate living rooms different as a Volkswagen Beetle and a Boeing 747, or as and front porches. They exploited a post-first ballot errant Rokita told Howey Politics Indiana on Tuesday, “The dy- flier from front-runner Richard Mourdock to win the nomi- namic was 180 degrees different.” In 2002, Rokita and his floor team included Bob Grand, Dan Dumezich, Sue Ann Continued on page 4 Gilroy and Greg Zoeller. They secured the nomination in an Pence’s very different July By BRIAN A. HOWEY INDIANAPOLIS – During a hot July four years ago, Donald Trump rescued then Indiana Gov. Mike Pence from what many believed would be a career-ending loss to John Gregg. And now, four years hence, it is Vice President “As we look out and factor every- Pence who is tied inextricably to the flagging fortunes of America’s most conspicuous pandemic victim, President thing that’s happening, it’s a very Trump. Vice presidents must volatile environment out there. become team players, echoing Not just in our state, but sur- their boss. But what Vice President Pence faces now is a pandemic rounding our state, around the that is becoming the gravest crisis country. So we’re going to lock facing the nation since World War II. The emerging consensus is in at 4.5 and we’ll be here for at that with Pence at the helm of the White House Coronavirus Task least another two weeks.” Force, the federal response has - Gov. Eric Holcomb Page 2 been botched. It took Trump nearly “Getting our kids back into schools two critical months to acknowledge is the right thing to do academically, this health crisis wasn’t a “hoax” but it’s also the right thing to do for dreamed up by Democrats and the our children,” Pence said at LSU’s news media. The federal response has Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, where been punted to the 50 states in what 30 football players had to be quaran- Howey Politics Indiana every other country has deemed to be tined due to a COVID outbreak. WWWHowey Media, LLC a national crisis. Trump’s handling of the pan- c/o Business Office With U.S. deaths approach- demic has been universally panned, PO Box 6553 ing 140,000 in just five months, on with 67% in an ABC/Ipsos Poll disap- Tuesday, Italy reported 114 new proving of his leadership; 71% of Kokomo, IN, 46904 cases, Germany 276, and the www.howeypolitics.com United States 67,400. At critical junctures, Brian A. Howey, Publisher Pence has misled the American Mark Schoeff Jr., Washington people. In an April 24 interview with Geraldo Rivera, he said, “If Mary Lou Howey, Editor you look at the trends today, that Susan E. Joiner, Editor I think by Memorial Day week- end we will have this coronavirus Subscriptions epidemic behind us.” On June 15 in a con- HPI, HPI Daily Wire $599 ference call with governors, HPI Weekly, $350 Pence urged them to reopen Lisa Hounchell, Account Manager their economies, telling them to (765) 452-3936 telephone “encourage people with the news (765) 452-3973 fax that we’re safely reopening the [email protected] country.” He dismissed the notion of community spread. “The presi- Contact HPI dent often talks about embers,” [email protected] Pence said, adding that “despite Howey’s cell: 317.506.0883 a mass increase in testing, we are still averaging roughly 20,000 U.S. parents polled in an Axios-Ipsos Washington: 202.256.5822 cases a day, which is significantly Coronavirus Index say it’d be risky to Business Office: 765.452.3936 down from six weeks ago.” send children back to school in the On June 16 in a Wall Street fall. © 2020, Howey Politics Journal op-ed, Pence wrote: “In While Lake County’s 16 Indiana. All rights reserved. recent days, the media has taken to districts will fully reopen, Wash- sounding the alarm bells over a ‘sec- ington Township MSD in Indy and Photocopying, Internet forward- ond wave’ of coronavirus infections. Portage schools have opted for a ing, faxing or reproducing in any Such panic is overblown. Thanks to virtual format, Warren Township MSD form, whole or part, is a violation the leadership of President Trump and is delaying its school year by two of federal law without permission the courage and compassion of the weeks, while Elkhart and Fort Wayne from the publisher. American people, our public health schools are giving parents options for system is far stronger than it was in-person or online instruction. four months ago, and we are winning The Hill analyzed: “The coro- Jack E. Howey the fight against the invisible enemy. navirus is spreading at ever-faster editor emeritus We’ve slowed the spread, we’ve cared rates in a broad array of states, put- 1926-2019 for the most vulnerable, we’ve saved ting the U.S. on the precipice of an lives, and we’ve created a solid foun- explosion of illness that threatens to dation for whatever challenges we overwhelm the nation’s health care may face in the future. That’s a cause system.” CNN analyzed: “There is for celebration, not the media’s fear- no plan. As the U.S. plunges into an mongering.” ever deeper coronavirus morass, set- This past week, Pence has ting record new infection rates and been trying to convince Americans the death curve begins to rise again, that it is safe for schools to reopen. there’s no prospect of the nightmare Page 3 ending for months. Delusion dominates an administration Tower dumpster) and that’s when the Russian probe seeds that perversely claims the United States is the world leader were sown that defined the first two years of the Trump in beating this modern day plague.” presidency. This comes as medical systems are becoming In March 2017 after insisting there was massive overwhelmed in Sunbelt states that heeded Trump and vote fraud, Trump charged Pence with heading the Presi- Pence’s urging to reopen their economies without achiev- dential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. By the ing CDC guidelines for doing so. time it disbanded just months later, Maine’s Democratic John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap echoed sentiments by Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” said this week another commission member, Indiana Secretary of State that “the most important lesson of 1918, one that all the Connie Lawson, saying, the effort was “glaringly empty,” working groups on pandemic planning agreed upon: Tell adding, “It’s calling into the darkness, looking for voter the truth. That instruction is built into the federal pan- fraud. There’s no real evidence of it anywhere.” demic preparedness plans and the plan for every state and On the plus side, Pence did successfully launch the territory.” U.S. Space Force. When that trust was violated in 1918 in a num- While Mike and Karen Pence have deemed run- ber of communities, Barry explained, “Trust in authority ning for reelection a paramount component to his political disintegrated, and at its core, society is based on trust. Not future, the more savvy move would have the vice president knowing whom or what to believe, begging off the ticket. That would people also lost trust in one another. save him from Trump’s culture wars They became alienated, isolated. Inti- that have entered racist territory macy was destroyed.” (i.e. defending the Confederate And that’s where America flag and statues; his “white power” stands today, politically divided over a video retweet; his equating the concept as simple as wearing a face Black Lives Matter movement to mask to protect those nearby. I’ve “new far-left fascism”) in what will witnessed this divide repeatedly in my likely be the nastiest campaign this travels between Nashville and India- century. GOP Senate candidates napolis. In blue areas, Hoosiers are this cycle are touching none of wearing masks; in red areas, not so those hot buttons. much. At this writing, Trump and Pence Peter Nichols writing in The Atlantic, said that are facing a landslide loss. That could change if this cycle’s while Donald Trump rescued Pence from a possible de- “October surprise” includes a coronavirus vaccine and a feat in 2016, it may be Pence who will bail out Trump in distinct jobs rebound. But right now, all signs are pointing 2020. “Their fates, at this point, are wholly entwined,” to a tumultuous autumn of second economic shutdowns Nichols writes. “Pence would have trouble winning in 2024 and school closures. The science will prove or disprove the if voters repudiate Trump in November. Yet even if he notion of safely reopened schools and universities, and the runs after a second Trump term, he’d surely be tarnished viability of college and pro sports by Labor Day. by the rolling tragedies of 2020.