Scramble to Join the Hoosier Senate 9 Holcomb Kicks Off Campaign Today for Rare Open Seat by BRIAN A
V20, N27 Thursday, March 26, 2015 Scramble to join the Hoosier Senate 9 Holcomb kicks off campaign today for rare open seat By BRIAN A. HOWEY INDIANAPOLIS – Since the dawn of the televi- sion era in Indiana politics, a mere nine white males have been U.S. senators out of the approximately 12 million people who called Indiana home during the period. Those holding one seat included Sens. Wil- liam Jenner (R), Vance Hartke (D), Dick Lugar (R), and now Joe Donnelly (D). On the other, there have been Sens. Homer Cape- hart (R), Birch Bayh (D), Dan Quayle (R), Dan Coats (R), Evan Bayh (D), and then Coats once U.S. Sen. Dan Coats conducts business on the phone on Capitol Hill. more. (New York Times photo). In more than case, Coats returned to the public spectrum to win back 60 years, there were three “open seats” at the beginning the seat he gave up a decade earlier. In only one instance, of the cycle when the incumbent did not run, with Jenner in 1958, Coats in 1998 and Evan Bayh in 2010. In Bayh’s Continued on page 3 Coats history rhymes By MARK SOUDER FORT WAYNE – The esteemed philosopher of baseball, Yogi Berra, once said: “It’s like déjà vu, all over again.” In 1998, U.S. Sen. Dan Coats surprised Indiana and the nation by deciding not “Faith, freedom and family used to run for reelection. It resulted in a three-way Senate primary to mean something in Indiana. with a candidate backed by Now, according to the cultural most Republican leadership, Peter Rusthoven, one backed and media elite, if you espouse by the social conservatives/ pre-Tea Party faction, John such positions you are consid- Price, and an elected official ered old fashioned.
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