V19, N43 Thursday, July. 24, 2014 No midterm wave developing to date thing to ramp Obama unpopularity up turnout.” offset by GOP brand In past wave elections problems; status quo – the 1966 and 2006 election for Indiana blowbacks to the Vietnam By BRIAN A. HOWEY and Iraq wars, INDIANAPOLIS – The 2014 the Repub- election cycle conventional wis- lican U.S. dom went something like this: With House take- Obamacare so utterly unpopular, with overs of 1994 President Obama’s approval numbers and 2010, and mired in the low 40th percentile, the post-Wa- and the historical second mid-term tergate Demo- quicksand for the president’s party cratic gains in creating a conspicuous obstacle down ballot, this had the 1974 – wave years generally began to set up in July. The potential to be a “wave election.” operatives closest to the ground would begin sounding the For Hoosiers expecting waves, I would recom- alarms or calling out the volunteers. In the 1980 Reagan mend the Michigan City lighthouse as a cold front passes Revolution, the decisive wave didn’t really take shape until through. As far as the November ballot is concerned, late October. this has the look and feel of a status quo election both in The area for the greatest potential change, forging Indiana and across the nation. “I don’t think this is much a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, is now a dubi- of a wave year,” said Mike Gentry, who heads the Indiana House Republican Campaign Committee. “There is nothing Continued on page 4 driving interest at the top of the ticket. We don’t have any- Putin and Flight 17 By BRIAN A. HOWEY BLOOMINGTON – Any illusions I had about the progressive nature of the Putin regime quickly dissipated when I returned to my Moscow Grand Marriott room in August 2007. Upon opening the door, I was greeted with the spectacle of my papers and “We don’t have an Ethics note pads strewn about the room. It was clear that an FSB Commission in Northwest agent stopped in to get a better Indiana. We have the FBI.” handle on who this American journalist might actually be. - Hammond Mayor Tom There had been a peace- ful transfer of power between McDermott Jr., reacting President Boris Yeltsin to Putin to the $5,000 fine former seven years prior, capping the decade following the collapse Supt. Tony Bennett of the Soviet Union that few received on ethics breach predicted. Putin had won a sub- Page 2 sequent election, though he controlled metal, wires, engines and seats. Bod- state media and international observ- ies lying in the field struck strange, ers had determined it rigged. Russian unnatural shapes in the tall grasses, people could now travel more freely to many naked but for their shoes. Some the West, and Russian hockey players were nestled together among piles populated the NHL without having to of open suitcases, including a man go through the rigors of defection. in a mint-colored T-shirt lying near As a congressional delega- a woman in torn jeans whose right tion headed by Sen. Richard Lugar arm was thrown up over her head as and former Sen. Sam Nunn journeyed if she were trying to protect herself. is a non-partisan newslet- across Moscow’s outer highway belts, Others lay alone, like the tiny girl, ter based in Indianapolis and a back-of-the-bus discussion involving probably no older than 3, dressed in Nashville, Ind. It was founded the New York Times’ C.J. Chivers and a red T-shirt without pants. The sight in 1994 in Fort Wayne. the Washington Post’s David Hoffman was overwhelming, even to rebels, speculated on whether Putin would who stood in stunned groups trying to It is published by relinquish power after his second term comprehend.” WWWHowey Media, LLC concluded a year later. There was Included in this jarring scene 405 Massachusetts Ave., no consensus and little speculation were Indiana University graduate stu- Suite 300 Indianapolis, IN that Putin would elevate 46204 Dmitri Medvedev to the presidency and spend the next four years as prime Brian A. Howey, Publisher minister before retaking Mark Schoeff Jr., Washington ultimate power in 2012 Jack E. Howey, Editor from behind his facade. Mary Lou Howey, Editor The Soviet econ- omy morphed into an Maureen Hayden, Statehouse oligarch-controlled quasi Matthew Butler, Daily Wire capitalistic system. The gulags no longer existed, Subscriptions but as our delegation bus passed dent and rower Karlijn Keijzer and 297 HPI, HPI Daily Wire $599 Lubyanka, the brutal Soviet legacy other souls (as well as 80 children and protruded and nudged the realm of infants), including former Kankakee HPI Weekly, $350 the past and the possible. Valley HS exchange student Laurens Ray Volpe, Account Manager Since last Thursday, when Van Der Graaff, her travel compan- 317.602.3620 it appears that Ukrainian separatists ion. In the following days, viewers email: [email protected] working with the Russian military shot on worldwide CNN, Al-Jazeera, the down Malaysian Air Flight 17 killing BBC and the American networks saw 298 people, the entire civilized world imagery of rebels picking through the Contact HPI now has a greater appreciation of the debris field, removing missile shards, www.howeypolitics.com nature of President Vladimir Putin. On as well as wedding rings and other [email protected] the Sunday morning talk shows, U.S. personal effects. Crumpled bodies Howey’s Cabin: 812.988.6520 Rep. Peter King described him as a were stacked in the summer heat Howey’s cell: 317.506.0883 “Mafia guy” and on MSNBC’s Morning along railroad tracks, and then loaded Joe, the term “thug” was common- into refrigerated rail cars. Dutch foren- Washington: 202.256.5822 place. sic team members finally given access Business Office: 317.602.3620 The wreckage and grotesque five days later appeared stunned at images from the Ukrainian sunflower the entire fiasco. It was an appalling © 2014, Howey Politics Indiana. and wheat fields were aptly described third world scene. All rights reserved. Photocopy- by the New York Times’ Peter Baker There were almost im- and a reporting team that included mediate assertions from Putin that ing, Internet forwarding, fax- Chivers: “The plane exploded in the Ukraine military was responsible, ing or reproducing in any form, midair and plummeted down into a absurd in the lack of time to make a whole or part, is a violation of series of large fields of wheat, grass meaningful assessment. federal law without permission and sunflowers, its fuselage and land- Foreign Policy’s Shane Harris from the publisher. ing gear twisted into a mountain of and Elias Groll would cite not only U.S. Page 3 intelligence sources and satel- shoot-down, “Nearly 300 innocent lives lite imagery, but a “mounting were taken – men, women, children, pile of evidence posted on infants who had nothing to do with the social media, including posts crisis in Ukraine. Their deaths are an by separatist leaders, tweets outrage of unspeakable proportions.” about the location of missile He was quickly criticized on the right launchers, and YouTube vid- for his “weak” response. eos documenting potentially The historical parallel is that after incriminating conversations Reagan’s 1983 speech, he did little between the men who may to sanction the decrepit, aging and have shot down the jetliner.” paranoid Soviet regime which had One included an image of a created a computer system that would BUK missile system exiting have taken command and control of Ukraine for Russia with one of its nuclear arsenal had it suffered a its four missiles missing. decapitating blow from the U.S. Harris and Groll re- But the shooting of Flight ported: Washington’s will- 007 was a turning point in several ingness to use Twitter and ways. It was followed by the deploy- the Russian equivalent of ment of Pershing missiles in Western Facebook to bolster its case Europe, and the Jason Robards’ film against Putin is a signal mo- “The Day After,” depicting Lawrence, ment in the history of social Kansas, following a U.S.-Soviet nuclear media, which is now taking holocaust, that drew 100 million its place alongside classified viewers. Hoffman would report in intelligence as an important his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The source of information for world Dead Hand” that Reagan came to leaders. As impressive as spy realize how Flight 007 had sent the photos and voice analysis may Soviets closer to a nuclear response be, it’s social media that has than anyone had realized, that Soviet helped build the public case against Russia and that has leaders viewed the Americans as potential aggressors, rallied world leaders to call for a thorough investigation of and it prompted him to envision a world without nuclear the shoot-down and consider imposing new sanctions on arsenals. In an address that December broadcast across Moscow. Given the volume and the specificity of this pub- Europe, Reagan said, “If the Soviet government wants licly available intelligence, it’s likely that the case against peace, then there will be peace.” Putin would be just as persuasive even if all the usual The other turning point came within Mother Rus- sources of state spycraft weren’t on the table. sia. Flight 007 was a symptom of a corrupt and collaps- This all conjured softer but equally devastating ing regime, though there was more than half a decaying imagery and rhetoric from the aftermath of the Sept. 1, decade left. With the passing of Brezhnev, Andropov and 1983, Soviet shooting of Korean Airlines Flight 007, killing Chernenko came the liberalizing Gorbachev, who realized 269 souls.