IMPORTANTVILLE: Debate night preview—Kander to Indiana—Buttigeig watch—Why Greg Pence won' talk
IMPORTANTVILLE:
04/30/2018 08:45 AM EDT
By @AdamWren
Send me scoops at cadamwren@gmail.com.
DAYS TO PRIMARY DAY: 8
FIRST IN IMPORTANTVILLE: JASON KANDER, the Missouri Democrat, is coming to town this weekend to campaign with Sen. Joe Donnelly on his. R.V. Donnelly and company will spend four and a half days on the road starting Thursday morning. Donnelly is also buying advertising to stay on TV through the end of the primary. CONTRAST WATCH: Donnelly’s first TV ad is one of the only positive messages on the air in Indiana, compared with those of his Republican opponents.
UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM: ROKITA has run the most disciplined Senate race on the Republican side, an unaligned Indiana Republican operative tells me. Yes, it’s hard to see that, given his fights with a conservative debate moderator, the children’s book thing, and the partisan sniping. But President Trump is still popular here, and Rokita is playing to that trend. No one does it more authentically—if abrasively—as Rokita. But remember: The man that emerges from the Republican primary will have to face Donnelly in a general election.
Good Monday morning. And welcome to Importantville. How to deal with Pacer’s loss to the Cavs in Game 7: Remember it’s gonna be May in Indianapolis tomorrow, the greatest month of the year here.
DEBATE NIGHT: Of all the #INSEN debates, this one could be the most explosive. ROKITA has said that he’ll be debating three opponents tonight: Braun, Messer, and the debate’s libertarian moderator and Indianapolis political gadfly, Abdul-Hakim Shabazz.
DEBATE PREP: Watch Abdul on Dan Spehler IN FOCUS here.
--HOW to watch: A link to the live stream.
BUTTIGEIG WATCH: On June 1, Buttigieg will be keynoting the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s state convention. With high profile Senate, gubernatorial, and congressional races in November, Wisconsin is a critical state for Democrats in 2018.”
--Since 2018 began, Buttigieg has keynoted the annual statewide Democratic events in Utah and Kansas. And this weekend, he will be the headliner at the South Dakota Democratic Party's McGovern Gala.
THE LEDES
FENCE AROUND GREG PENCE: A remarkable thing is about to happen in Indiana politics. On primary day, Greg Pence, the vice president’s brother, will likely win his bid to become the Republican nominee, without answering to the state’s paper of record or any national media.
--I reached out to Nicole Pence, the candidate’s daughter, in December, for an interview (she was helping the campaign at the time). She said she passed on my request. Neither she nor the campaign have responded to subsequent messages. Greg will likely face a media firestorm as we get closer to the general election. The coverage will only get tougher.
WHY GREG PENCE WON’T TALK TO REPORTERS, FROM THE STAR PRESS: “Table-hopping with his wife before his speech, Pence shook hands with retiree Sara Duffy, a Republican, a school board member, and one of the all-volunteer staff writers for the Franklin County Observer.
“I asked him if he was going to take any questions after he gave his speech,” Duffy told The Star Press. “He said, ‘No, because people want to ask about national issues,’ and that’s something he can’t comment on."
“It's not nearly as understandable from the vantage point of citizens in a democracy, who need to know as much as they can about candidates,” Marjorie Hershey, a political science professor at Indiana University, told The Star Press.: READ MORE.
AND/BUT, from the campaign: “Greg Pence has appeared at over 60 public events in the 6th District since announcing his candidacy in October. Greg Pence has openly answered questions at all of the events, including his invitation to speak at the Delaware County Republican monthly meeting. Greg Pence is committed to a positive, grassroots-focused campaign where Greg meets with numerous groups and is crisscrossing the 6th District to speak directly with voters … Greg Pence will be a strong conservative leader in Congress. Any attacks pointing to the contrary are ridiculous, desperate and false.”
FLASHBACK: PENCE gave an eyebrow-raising, loose interview to The New Yorker's Jane Mayer last year, in a searing profile of his brother, the vice president. It's likely that's when the reins tightened.
“Pence’s maternal grandfather was from Ireland, but his paternal grandfather, Edward Joseph Pence, Sr., came from a German family. Brief mentions of Edward in the press have described him as having worked in the Chicago stockyards, leaving the impression that he was poor. But Gregory told me that Edward was well off, with a seat on the Chicago Stock Exchange. “Grandfather Pence was a very hard man,” Gregory said. Edward refused to provide financial support when Gregory and Mike’s father, Edward, Jr., went to college; an aunt loaned him the tuition, but he had to leave law school when he ran out of money. “Grampa Pence was a gambler!” Fritsch chimed in. “He played cards and went to Las Vegas.”
WHAT PETER HANSCOM IS READING, from Bloomberg Politics: "Senate Democrats in this year’s toughest re-election races raised more than twice as much as their Republican opponents during the first quarter of 2018, while the GOP burned resources on primary fights in multiple states.
The 10 Democratic incumbents running in the November election from states won by President Donald Trump raised a combined $23.9 million in the first three months of the year, while the Republicans with at least $50,000 in their bank accounts in those states -- 20 in all competing in eight contested primaries -- raised $9.4 million, a Bloomberg analysis of filings this week with the Senate Office of Public Records shows."
MIRA AWARDS
SCOTT DORSEY, managing partner of High Alpha, wins Investor of the Year. “In the 30 months since the four founding partners launched High Alpha, the venture studio has invested $11.4 million in Indianapolis tech companies, including six investments in 2017 alone. High Alpha has also forged a number of relationships between VCs and investors outside Indiana that have culminated in large investments into the Indianapolis tech community from firms across the country.” See the full list of Mira Award winners here.
FOURTH ESTATE
SPOTTED AT WHCD: MARISA KWIATKOWSKI attended the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner with 2012 Olympic Gold Medalist Jordyn Wieber and Wieber’s mom. Pic.
STAR SWEEPS: Three reporters from The Indianapolis Star and a Ball State University student are the top winners in the chapter’s 2017 Best in Indiana contest this past weekend, while students from Indiana University and Ball State received the chapter’s college scholarships.
Indianapolis Star reporter Mark Alesia was selected as the Indiana Journalist of the Year for work including investigations into how USA Gymnastics responded to reports of sexual abuse by coaches and doctors and the state’s financial troubles surrounding the Interstate 69 extension project between Bloomington and Martinsville.
--FULL List of winners.
MAJOR MOVES
KATE OEHL will be starting with Donnelly's re-election campaign today as its press secretary. Oehl joins the campaign after working for Joe’s official U.S. Senate offices in Washington, D.C. and Indiana.
THE KICKER
“This race has slowly but surely descended into Dante’s Inferno,” said John Hammond III, who represents Indiana on the Republican National Committee, to the AP's Brian Slodysko, about the Republican Senate primary. “It will provide the Democrats an awful lot of free opposition research.”