"French Lick is not what you hoped it was..."

But does the Indiana Democrats' annual gathering still have juice?

It’s one of the best—and most ribald—lines in the history of Indiana politics. Both Hoosier Democrats and Republicans have used it in local and national speeches.

Often attributed to the late former Secretary of State Larry Conrad, there are variations on the delivery.

Here’s former Gov. Mitch Daniels—on the brink of a possible presidential bid—deploying it in an address at the Gridiron Club Dinner in 2011:

“I bring greetings from my beloved Indiana. South Bend is in the north, North Vernon's in the south, and French Lick is not what you hoped it was.”

And here’s Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett riffing on the line in 2019:

“Only in Indiana is South Bend in the north, North Vernon in the south and French Lick ain’t anywhere near as exciting as it sounds.”

Beyond a punchline, though, French Lick has also been the setting of some of the most storied political moments in both Indiana and U.S. history. Those moments are top of mind as a drove of Democrats are expected to gather there this coming week for the first time in two years for the 140th Indiana Democratic Editorial Association (IDEA) Conference. It will also be Mike Schmuhl’s first conference as chairman. Party insiders gather for a golf tournament (on a Pete Dye-designed course)named after Conrad, a legislative panel, and a panel about women running for office featuring Deputy Chair Christina Hale, Rep. Cherrish Pryor, and Sen. Shelli Yoder. Another panel focuses on serving as a mayor in a red state and will feature Hogsett and Zionsville Mayor Emily Styron. This year, former Indiana Gov. and Sen. Evan Bayh and his son Beau are expected to attend. Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott—who is mulling a challenge to Republican Sen. Todd Young—has been known to enlist an RV for the trek from Northwest Indiana to French Lick.

Exclusive photograph of Governor Al Smith of New York, enjoying a quiet moment at French Lick, Indiana, where he was taking a brief rest following his months of strenuous campaigning (Photo by George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)

The French Lick hotel was once owned by Indianapolis Mayor Tom Taggart, who was Democratic National chairman from 1904 to 1908. In 1931, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used a Democratic Governor’s Conference meeting at the resort to build support for his 1932 presidential campaign. The event began as a gathering of Indiana’s Democratic newspaper publishers and columnists; it was a chance for them to get access to party poobahs and luminaries, sourcing up for the year to come.

This was when Indiana had such a diverse and varied media ecosystem that papers were named after the political parties they championed, and featured characters such as Ray Everett, the editor of the Brookville Democrat from 1946 to 1975. “He was unabashedly a Democrat and never met a Republican he liked,” John Estridge, the former editor of the Brookville Democrat and Brookville American from 1990 to 2020, told me. “He attended every IDEA conference and wrote extensively about them including who spoke, where they were, and the conversations he had during those conferences.”

An 1892 roll of IDEA members featured more than 90 such journalists across the state. Today, the state’s newspapers feature fewer than a dozen such figures. The decline of IDEA mirrored the decline of the state’s newspapers—and a changing media ecosystem.

The campaign of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama considered holding debate prep at the resort in 2008: The spot was remote to prevent leaks, and perhaps Obama could shoot around with the Hick from French Lick Larry Bird¹, the thinking went; it never happened.²

Advertisement for the French Lick Springs hotel and health resort, Indiana, 1902. (Photo by Jay Paull/Getty Images)

In the 2000s, the IDEA event became a place to be seen and build support for political campaigns, says Jeff Harris, a longtime Hoosier Democratic hand. “You kind of know by the level of visibility at French Lick who is a candidate and who’s not,” Harris told me. Twelve years ago this month, in 2009, a then-unknown Pete Buttigieg launched his 2010 state treasurer campaign there with the help of Harris:

Harris had some 50 leftover yard signs from various friends’ campaigns. He and some volunteers spray-painted them white. On them, they wrote “Meet Pete.” They planted them for miles in every direction around the resort. The move created buzz. As Democratic grandees arrived that Friday for the weekend, they all had one question: Who the hell is Pete?

And before his second gubernatorial bid, John Gregg backers such as Harris handed out mustache stickers—a nod to the mustachioed Gregg. “That was the soft launch of his campaign,” Harris tells me. “We kind of created buzz.”

The event is a notoriously boozy affair. One would be forgiven if they thought the springs in “French Lick Springs” were not filled with mineral water, but brown liquor, which flows just as freely on the hotel’s scenic porch after a certain hour. In the old days, the story goes, well-lubricated governors, congressmen, political candidates, and staffers would ride a luggage conveyor belt in the early hours of the morning. On Friday and Saturday night, beers and liquor fill iced bathtubs in hospitality suites, and candidates and officeholders hop from room to room.

Now, in the COVID era, some Democratic insiders say they will not attend this year’s gathering. There are also questions about whether the event still carries the weight it once did.

One Hoosier Democrat told me “the event has lost a lot of its purpose.”

“There may have been a time when IDEA offered an opportunity for those preaching the gospel of Democratic politics to help focus and magnify their message to the masses. These days it's not about the sermon as much as making sure the choir has a good time.”

“Money matters,” Peter Hanscom, the former architect of Sen. Joe Donnelly’s 2018 Senate campaign and a member of IDP State Central Committee, told me (both Hanscom and Donnelly are expected to be in attendance). “And a statewide political network you can activate to combat fake news matters. Getting drunk on a porch and pretending it’s 2000 isn’t going to help anything in 2022 or 2024.”

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1. Larry Legend did make an appearance at an IDEA golf tournament once to back Bren Simon’s lieutenant governor bid alongside Joe Andrew.

2. (Presidents Gerald Ford and Harry Truman are among five presidents who have visited the resort, though their visits were apart from IDEA conferences.)