Longtime GOP councilman says he'll run tight ship as president

Ah, okay -- now we're getting somewhere! Now you say that Peterson and the city "counsel" (sic) did the raising. Fine, fair enough. I didn't think that Peterson did it himself as you had originally said, since he couldn't.

I have a few other questions for you, though. I noticed you said Peterson and the "counsel" (sic) raised taxes and had "something better" than a dictatorship since the council was "democratic controlled".

Now, are you telling me that the tax increases all happened with only Democrat votes? Really? Or that the tax increases all occurred in the final four years of Peterson's term (when he had the same party in control)? None of the increases came about during Peterson's first four years when there was a Republican-controlled council? Really?

I can't wait for your responses to those questions!

And by the way, please, PLEASE point out to me where I said something along the lines of Peterson being my boy, or me supporting Peterson in any way. Twenty dollars says you would not, because you could not.

I am not terribly upset Peterson lost the election, and I am not terribly excited Ballard won. Check out my comments the day after the election, and you can see that I try to see both sides of the political spectrum:

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/indianapoli...

I think people who speak in incredibly partisan ways accomplish little more than jack squat and do more harm to the political system than anything else.

On your past post:
"3. Speaking of which, where was the support from the Marion County Democratic Party for its candidates? The Republicans blew them out of the water this election (I have always thought the Republican Party, like them or not, is the better organized party most places)."
If the democrats are less organized then the republicans were in this election, I feel sorry for them. The only way to find out anything was to call the headquaters or look on some of the protesters web sites to find out what was going on. It was the people who got tired of all the taxes in this city that showed and worked many hours to get Ballard elected.
Ballard did not even have the republican backing in this election until the last hours when they saw that he had a chance. Our man Mitch refuesed to back him now he is goating about the fact he won.
Put two tax raises on the citizens and 17 surchanges on bills and you lose the election. This goes for republicans and democrats as well.
"Now, are you telling me that the tax increases all happened with only Democrat votes?"
Nope and if you will check the record, most of them did not win re-election. Kelly for one. Langford did not run again so he saved me alot of work.

DavidM wrote:

On your past post:
"3. Speaking of which, where was the support from the Marion County Democratic Party for its candidates? The Republicans blew them out of the water this election (I have always thought the Republican Party, like them or not, is the better organized party most places)."
If the democrats are less organized then the republicans were in this election, I feel sorry for them. The only way to find out anything was to call the headquaters or look on some of the protesters web sites to find out what was going on. It was the people who got tired of all the taxes in this city that showed and worked many hours to get Ballard elected.
Ballard did not even have the republican backing in this election until the last hours when they saw that he had a chance. Our man Mitch refuesed to back him now he is goating about the fact he won.
Put two tax raises on the citizens and 17 surchanges on bills and you lose the election. This goes for republicans and democrats as well.
"Now, are you telling me that the tax increases all happened with only Democrat votes?"
Nope and if you will check the record, most of them did not win re-election. Kelly for one. Langford did not run again so he saved me alot of work.

There are two general types of support in elections -- political and financial. The Republicans may not have had the political support (though, ask yourself if the Democrats did), but you cannot possibly, honestly say the Republicans did not have the financial support-advantage over the Democrats in this election.

Take a look at one of the Ballard for Mayor signs (the "Had Enough?", etc. ones). What does it say on the bottom? Probably not a whole lot of them say "Ballard for Mayor Committee" or something along those lines. My bet is most of them say "Paid for by the Marion County Republican Central Committee, Tom John Chairman". I know many of the Republicans running for council said this and some of Ballard's commercials also, particularly the closer they got to the election. Heck, even Ballard's website said it on the bottom.

So Ballard can say he did not have much money or much support (and he literally did not have much money raised by his campaign), but overall it is a bit disingenuous. He had plenty of money -- from the Republican Party. You cannot deny that fact.

I am glad we have an agreeance about not just Democrats voting for tax and other increases since it goes both ways. I do not think tax increases are always a bad thing, but from a political standpoint, the increases were not done well -- and like you said, the council members generally felt this effect.

I think we can both agree that the voters were angry, but I do not think they were very, very angry. Many variables might factor into this -- Democrats might have stayed home thinking the mayor was not in as much trouble. Independents might not have been thrilled with a political novice running. Even some Republicans might have been leary of this as well. Many voters were angry, but many more did not vote.

Regardless, it is very disappointing to see how truly low the turnout was for such close mayoral and council races. I worked at a polling place on the Eastside and for two precints, there were about 368 voters for the entire 12 hours. That is miserable.

Unfortunately, this is a growing (and to me, upsetting) trend here and everywhere.

"So Ballard can say he did not have much money or much support (and he literally did not have much money raised by his campaign), but overall it is a bit disingenuous. He had plenty of money -- from the Republican Party. You cannot deny that fact."

Better check the record.

The Republican Party started out by giving Ballard the use of one of their buildings. It would be listed as money in kind. They put this at $70,000. There is one guy who gave Ballard $20,000 and two or three others who shelled out $5,000. The rest came from $25,$50, and a lot of one hundred dollar checks. In the last two weeks when the republican party saw that he had a good chance of winning gave him $30,000 so he would have enough money to put on those TV adds.

Also to run Tv ads for one week it cost about $101,000. Before Ballart ads started appearing the last week, he had about %51,000 left.

DavidM wrote:

"So Ballard can say he did not have much money or much support (and he literally did not have much money raised by his campaign), but overall it is a bit disingenuous. He had plenty of money -- from the Republican Party. You cannot deny that fact."
Better check the record.
The Republican Party started out by giving Ballard the use of one of their buildings. It would be listed as money in kind. They put this at $70,000. There is one guy who gave Ballard $20,000 and two or three others who shelled out $5,000. The rest came from $25,$50, and a lot of one hundred dollar checks. In the last two weeks when the republican party saw that he had a good chance of winning gave him $30,000 so he would have enough money to put on those TV adds.

Thus, the Republicans gave at least $100,000 to the Ballard campaign -- for the building and for tv ads. They also supported his website and many of his signs. Regardless, without their support, he would have had much less just for his campaign.

Yes, the party's support was tepid for a long while (after all, supporting a political novice against a two-term incumbent does seem like a waste of money at first). The Republicans smelled blood in the water come late summer and threw more support in towards the end -- that is smart politics and that is why the Republican Party trounced the Democrats this election.

The Republicans running for Council had much support from the party as well. Just because the actual campaign (of Ballard or the ones running for Council) did not get direct money from the party into their specific campaign chests does not mean the party did not support them in other ways -- such as funding commercials, funding yard signs, or funding fliers for door-to-door campaigning and at the polls.

These expenditures do not need to be reported in campaign finance disclosures for those particular campaigns as they are separate from the specific campaigns. It was brilliant for the Republicans to do -- throw in late support when they thought Ballard could win. This way they look like they supported Ballard, but they can also more easily disassociate themselves from him if he does not do as well in the next four years -- as they were unsure of him in the beginning. They can do to him what the Democrats did to Peterson -- mostly abandon him and let him raise his own money.

If the state Democrats are smart, they may very well do what the Republicans did in Indy come November next year. With their non-name-recognized candidates running against Mitch Daniels, if they smell blood in the water (and obviously many are not happy with the Daniels' administration right now) come late summer -- they might throw in money late to challenge the incumbent.

I don’t know if you heard the rumor at the start of this race or not. I take it only as a rumor that I heard from a republican that has been active for a few years.

You don’t run anyone known against Peterson and we will not run anyone known against Mitch. Hmmmm

Now, I want you to try to get the votes that Ballard did on $300,000 in your vault. Say what you will but it took the people that worked many hours for the Ballard campaign to get the results that we got. Without them those signs would not have pop up in yards and roadsides around the city. Without them the thousands of calls would not have been made. Without them people would not have gotten rides to the polls that needed them.
Without them the polls would not have had workers station outside. When all the total number of dollars is added up and the total number of citizens working, the number of hours the citizens put in, the citizens won hands down.

DavidM wrote:

I don’t know if you heard the rumor at the start of this race or not. I take it only as a rumor that I heard from a republican that has been active for a few years.
You don’t run anyone known against Peterson and we will not run anyone known against Mitch. Hmmmm
Now, I want you to try to get the votes that Ballard did on $300,000 in your vault. Say what you will but it took the people that worked many hours for the Ballard campaign to get the results that we got. Without them those signs would not have pop up in yards and roadsides around the city. Without them the thousands of calls would not have been made. Without them people would not have gotten rides to the polls that needed them.
Without them the polls would not have had workers station outside. When all the total number of dollars is added up and the total number of citizens working, the number of hours the citizens put in, the citizens won hands down.

I will some what agree with you. There was a good grassroots effort by the Ballard campaign. But I still think it was more of a vote against Peterson than for Ballard. But either way congrats to the winner.

Alot of both. And a few demcrats that stayed home either for the reason of it being cold or they did not want to vote republican.