When I was a high school page for House Speaker Kermit Burrous back in the early 1970s, I remember standing at the Speaker’s podium for a photo with him, and looking out across the House chambers as members gathered for the session. I saw Chet Dobis and Jeff Espich, and, of course, the little giant, the martinet of the St. Joe, one B. Patrick Bauer.
I’m 56 years old now, and those guys are still there! I have a term for the public servant who doesn’t know when to hang it up: Feet firsters. You know how that goes: The only way they’ll leave the Statehouse or U.S. Capitol is feet first, on a stretcher to either the ambulance or the hearse.
This year, 2012, is becoming the anti-FF. It began in the days and then hours leading up to the February filing deadline when a slew of long-time legislators decided to hang it up. The first was former Ways & Means Chairman William Crawford.
U.S. Rep. Dan Burton came to the House floor where his career began and declared he would retire. Burton was smart enough to read the tea leaves after winning reelection in the 2010 Republican primary with a paltry 29 percent of the vote. Then came the parade of House Democrats: Reps. Chet Dobis, Dale Grubb, John Day, Nancy Dembowski, Dave Cheatham and even the relatively youthful looking Dan Stevenson.
All had had it. They cited a polarized atmosphere, special interests willing to spend huge bucks against them, and they saw angry voters who make political dinosaurs vulnerable.
As were Senate Finance Chairman Larry Borst in the 2004 Republican primary and Senate President Pro Tempore Robert D. Garton in the same humbling method two years later. Both lost to little known challengers.
These leaders accrued nicks, cuts, barnacles, and vociferous enemies and insurgent PACs with an array of conspicuous and hidden agendas.
This was a precursor to the most epic retirement party of all: U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar’s landslide loss to Richard Mourdock in the May Republican primary.
Republican pollster Christine Matthews — half of the Howey/DePauw Indiana Battleground Poll team — observed after the April 30/May poll that while 15 percent of pending Republican primary voters were voting for Mourdock due to ideology and Tea Party issues, a vast majority decided to retire Lugar because of his age and that he had “been there too long.”
That may be the message Hoosier voters are trying to deliver this year: No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, there are limits to how long we want you doing our bidding in Washington and Indianapolis, or even at City Hall.
A decade ago, it was almost unfathomable to think that a Lugar, Burton, Garton or Borst could be dislodged from their perches. Today, no one is safe.
The behavior of Hoosier voters belies the need for term limits.
Which gets me back to Democratic House Minority Leader Bauer, who has survived two caucus coup attempts since June 28.
The reason that a good chunk of his House caucus is up in arms is that a state legislator has an ear to the ground and is attuned to what the folks back home are saying. They hear: “We’re mad as hell.”
But more emphatically, Bauer’s oversight of the 2010 campaign when Democrats went from a majority to a 40/60 minority has been a calamity for the party.
Informed and reliable Democratic sources tell me that in early fall of that year, polling showed veteran State Reps. Bob Bischoff, Paul Robertson, Sandra Blanton and others losing by big numbers. All lost in a big way.
In the meantime, resources were not directed into tighter races that the party could have retained. They included campaigns of State Reps. John Barnes, who lost to Cindy Kirchofer by 598 votes; Ron Herrell, who was defeated by Mike Karickhoff by 818 votes; Joe Pearson, who lost to Kevin Mahan 7,198 to 6,121; Bob Dieg in the seat vacated by State Rep. Trent Van Haaften (who ran in the 8th CD) and lost by four votes to Wendy McNamara; and Mike Goebel in the seat of retiring State Rep. Dennis Avery, who lost to Ron Bacon by 164 votes; as well as House Minority Leader Russ Stilwell, who lost to current Republican lieutenant governor nominee Sue Ellspermann by 880 votes.
Those tactical decisions have been disastrous for the Indiana Democratic Party and its core constituencies. Right to Work is the classic example. Republicans easily passed it with votes to spare, allowing potentially vulnerable freshmen like State Rep. Mike Karickhoff and State Rep. Tom Dermody, both representing heavily unionized areas, to vote nay.
Had House Democrats been able to hang on to 45 seats, the Right to Work issue would have been much more arduous for the GOP, with more political implications for the 2012 cycle.
Some House Democrats now see a dinosaur — a Bauersaurus — who missed the asteroid trail that lit the primitive night skies in 2004, 2006 and now 2010; the one that brought climate change.
There’s climate change in the Statehouse, and if you use a Grecian formula, a walker, an oxygen canister, if you keep losing your bifocals and you think tweeting is for the birds, well, it just might be time for you to go home.
Brian Howey publishes at www.howeypolitics.com. Find him on Twitter @hwypol.
Opinion Columns
BRIAN HOWEY: Extinction of the Bauersaurus?
- Opinion Columns
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RONN MOTT: Frustration
For those who know me well, they can say without contradiction I am not a patient man. But in this hustle and bustle world I’ve been a part of all my adult life, I’ve had to learn a little patience. On occasion, however, I find some experiences extremely frustrating.
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RONN MOTT: Rabid Republicans
The so-called news people at Fox News can hardly sit still long enough to report on the latest gossip or untruth about our sitting President. They can hardly contain themselves.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Smell of fresh air gave way to dryers
Remember when clean clothes smelled like fresh air and sunshine rather than fabric softener and dryer sheets?
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STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Is it regulation that doesn’t make sense or evening the playing field?
I’m not much of a drinker, so I haven’t spent much time thinking about how Indiana’s alcohol laws personally impact me, but that changed last fall when my daughter got married.
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Mark Bennett: High-profile mural connects historical dots from city to river
At 96 feet wide and 2 stories tall, the power, impact and value of the Wabash will be evident.
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RONN MOTT: Mushrooms = Hoosier happiness
Someone wrote or said a few years ago a statement that would define the word “Hoosier.” According to this urban legend, a Hoosier is somebody dribbling a basketball around the Indy 500 while eating a fried, morel mushroom. It did not define me, at the time.
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RONN MOTT: Israel’s Air Force
Recently the Israeli Air Force bombed and rocketed a convoy leaving Syria going to Lebanon with rockets that were going to be used to attack Israel. It did not get there. It was destroyed.
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RONN MOTT: Media merry-go-round
Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. That isn’t a unique phrase to this writer or to this era in time. But, when it comes to the musical chairs of broadcasting, it certainly applies.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Courts see a different appearance than cops
Have you ever noticed the transformation between the arrest of an accused lawbreaker and the first appearance in court?
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MARK BENNETT: Life at face value: Mom’s simple advice still presents a valuable daily challenge
Most moms don’t base their advice on scientific research.
(Unless, of course, your mother is a scientific researcher. If so, carry a No. 2 pencil and take good notes.) -
SUSAN DUNCAN: Advice to the kids on Mother’s Day
Just so you know, now settled firmly into middle age, I think of “kids” as anyone in their 30s and younger. I also accept that many of my elders view me as an upstart whippersnapper, though snapping even my fingers nowadays can be a chore.
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FLASHPOINT: Again in 2013 General Assembly, middle class generally ignored
Last year, the people of Indiana entrusted the Republican Party with some of their most precious possessions.
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RONN MOTT: ‘Raccoons II’
In the Algonquin Indian language, raccoon means “working with hands.” They are really cute little fellows until they injure a child, or a pet, or leave feces around where you certainly do not want it.
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RONN MOTT: ‘NRA Convention’
At the recent NRA Convention in Houston, Texas, where the right-wing political hot air almost lifted the convention's building off its foundation, the NRA trotted out the forever yours political dame of the right wing, Sarah Palin. Sarah did not disappoint.
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RONN MOTT: ‘Heritage gone’
The last high school I attended was being torn down just a few days ago. I didn't learn about it until I saw classmate Dick Mills on television and a display he had put together about State football championships in the middle 1930's. I began elementary school with Dick Mills. That was Matthew South Elementary School on South Sixth Street in Clinton, Indiana. After seeing Dick on TV, it dawned on me that all schools I had attended in Clinton have been torn down.
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LIZ CIANCONE: We always want more than we need
Washington seems more preoccupied with the unemployment rate than they are about the constant stalemate. Still with thousands out of work and the unemployment rate hovering somewhere between 7 percent and 9 percent, it does deserve more than a passing nod.
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MARK BENNETT: Should I stay or should I go?
Some have their Bill Clinton-era Cavalier packed (with the trunk bungee-ed shut), apartment cleaned (except for the fridge), and iPhone GPS locked onto the fastest route out of Terre Haute. Others are staying — until they find a better job, or because they’re starting a career here, or because this town feels like home. In each case, a new stage of life begins today.
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College Class of '13 gets a little extra advice
Local college grads will hear commencement speakers offer life and career advice this month. We’re offering them an extra dose here from folks who’ve found success in various vocations and regions of the nation. Many have Terre Haute roots.
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RONN MOTT: Things that go bump in the night
I live in a very old house. There are all kinds of noises that occur, especially at night, or so it seems. Aside from the various creaks and pops from old wooden floors and walls when the furnace heats up and sends warm air into the rooms, we, my wife and I, have heard other noises.
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RONN MOTT: Around the dial
At lunch the other day with Terry Tevlin (First Financial Bank), I bumped into Dale Mahurin. I hadn’t talked to Dale in a long time and inquired about his wife, Julie Henricks.
Julie has returned to the radio microphone doing a weekend gig on Mix FM. For fans of Julie’s show on WTWO-TV, don’t worry, she’s not leaving … just multi-tasking. Welcome back to the radio airwaves, Julie! -
ANDREA NEAL: Newspaper journalists still make a difference
A recent survey ranked newspaper reporter as the worst career of 2013, just below meter reader and lumberjack, but you wouldn’t guess it from the stories told by journalists who gathered in Bloomington to see six of their own inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
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RONN MOTT: George Jones
I got to Nashville in the early ’70s, hired by John Patton, who had been a DJ for WBOW earlier in his career. Then, he was managing WMAK in Nashville and I was promised a top sales list and received the yellow pages (many a promise like this has happened to people in this business). I also did sports commentary for the morning man and would ultimately do a season of play-by-play and a short TV schedule for Tennessee State.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Old age is in email of the beholder
My Best Friend isn’t much for writing letters, so email has opened a new world for him. He can dash off a few words to a high school friend or his college roommate — now living in Florida and Washington State,
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MARK BENNETT: Spirited response to a rising river
The power within the Wabash revealed itself last week.
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FLASHPOINT: Time has arrived for overhaul of TV news
Former FCC Chairman Alfred Sikes gave an address in 1992 in which he claimed television news was too superficial and too focused on visuals.
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RONN MOTT: Remembering Pat Summerall
I don’t remember how I first became aware of Pat Summerall, but the first time I heard him was on a New York radio station (WCBS, I think). He was doing the sports for the morning man and exchanging some opinions about sports and such with him.
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RONN MOTT: What I don’t know
I was watching a segment on the History Channel the other night while I waited for the end of “The Big Bang Theory” and a show I had seen before. It was “Sex in History.” And the two segments I watched were about Ben Franklin and Howard Hughes.
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RONN MOTT: You, me, and the Muslim world
I don’t know how to do this. I’m a fairly intelligent human being, but the events of the past week in Boston have turned me emotionally inside out. It’s more than the people who died, it’s more than the people who were injured … some permanently,
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LIZ CIANCONE: A memory test from the oldtime radio days
For some reason, I seem to be the go-to source for all sorts of obscure information out at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center.
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MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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Elin Nordegren Furious With Lindsey Vonn For Parading Kids in Public
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