IMPORTANTVILLE: Hogsett fundraising—Altman's Trumpworld brush—Veep to Indy
04/23/2018 05:50 AM EDT
By @AdamWren
Send me scoops at cadamwren@gmail.com.
Email me: cadamwren@gmail.com
DAYS TO PRIMARY DAY: 15
FIRST IN IMPORTANTVILLE: MAYOR JOE HOGSETT’s appearances at fundraisers for Statehouse candidates have been few and far between over his first two years in office, but just two days after the State of the City, he'll be headlining a reception for a state senate candidate.
--And not just any candidate: Derek Camp, State Sen. Jim Merritt's opponent, should Merritt survive his current primary challenge, will receive Hogsett at a fundraiser on Wednesday. And the dollar amounts coming in are well in excess of what Camp would be expected to bring in given his perceived long-shot status. EYEBALLS EMOJI.
--With Merritt reportedly having put his own name on a recent poll from the county party, it raises the question how much Hogsett plans to raise for Camp, and whether that money could end up being utilized in 2018 to discourage Merritt from entering the race.
HQ2: INDY'S SECRET SAUCE: Most major metropolitan areas had multiple bids based on specific sites (Boston, for example, had 12 distinct applications). Despite rumors that various regional entities (counties, cities, towns) were interested in bidding here in Indianapolis, ultimately there was only one bid submitted from Central Indiana -- a consolidated, regional effort that wasn't site-specific (as said by Hogsett at the time of submission).
CLIP AND SAVE: Quartz's "A nearly complete list of the 238 places that bid for Amazon’s next headquarters."
Good Monday morning.
SPOTTED: Sen. Joe Donnelly, 10 rows back from the bench, at Bankers Life Fieldhouse Sunday night for Game 4.
TENDERLOIN WEEK: Here’s where and how to celebrate.
FLASHBACK: In April 2016, I saw Ted Cruz turn down a tenderloin sandwich at the Oasis Diner in Plainfield. In that moment, I knew he had lost the Indiana Primary (kidding!). Here’s my April 2016 piece on why he actually lost.
DEEP DIVE: Indianapolis Monthly’s epic 2009 tenderloin road trip across the state.
TENDERLOIN TRIVIA: Why do Hoosiers love the tenderloin? It has something to do with our German ancestry, according to this 2009 piece from the Anderson Herald Bulletin.
“A lot of Indiana’s immigration is German,” said Susan Haller of the Indiana Foodways Alliance, headquartered in Anderson. “Basically, pork tenderloin is schnitzel. Most of us hear about veal schnitzel, but pork is what was grown and has always been a top product of Indiana. Haller’s organization has even narrowed down the invention of the sandwich, to a place and a time. The first evidence of the pork tenderloin sandwich actually being on a bun was in Huntington,” she says. “In 1908, a guy named Nick Freinstein was a German immigrant, and he had a little cart on Jefferson Street. He put pork schnitzel on a bun and sold it.”
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
THE NEW MAN IN #INSEN: Altman’s campaign manager is the same as Independent candidate for President in 2016, Evan McMullin’s: Joel Searby, the Florida-based political consultant.
ALTMAN’S BRUSH WITH TRUMPWORLD: FLASHBACK to a 2012 Entrepreneur profile of Altman and his online soft drink company uFlavor, sent in by an eagle-eyed Importantville tipster: After launching in early December last year, the uFlavor team took a tour bus to the West Coast to spread the word. In January, they sent a custom drink to businesswoman Ivanka Trump, who tweeted about how much she loved it. The company also recently released a lemon-and-lime energy drink designed by indie hip-hop artist Khleo; going forward, the full-time staff of five hopes to collaborate with other celebrities.
--ROKITA is running out of money. He provides the greatest contrast to Donnelly, though his views on abortion are to the right of Mourdock’s. He is the most likely candidate to have a Mourdock-like gaffe.
--MESSER is weathering a DUI scandal, and his response has been to seek refuge in conservative talk radio.
--BRAUN is ascendant, but there is a lot of oppo yet to come. Ironically, he is perhaps the most Trumpian candidate in the race, in that he voted as a Democrat for years before seeking a Republican nomination.
VEEP
PENCE travels back to Indiana Thursday.
LATER TODAY, he’ll lunch with Trump.
THE BROTHERS PENCE: The New York Times goes deep on Greg Pence’s business record, which includes a bankruptcy.
“Hardly the first candidate to run on a famous name, Mr. Pence, 61, extols two central credentials in his House bid: his service in the Marines and his success as a business executive. But an examination of his record in business shows decidedly mixed results. He was the president of a convenience store chain — making key strategic decisions — that filed for bankruptcy protection and was assessed penalties of $8.4 million by the State of Indiana for environmental damage, caused primarily by leaking underground storage tanks.
A local bank, where he also served on the board of directors, was forced to sue him to recover $3.8 million in debts that he had personally guaranteed, only to have to settle for pennies on the dollar.
THE LEDES
CITY HALL FOR SALE? You read it here first, a week before this IndyStar story ran yesterday, but Indy Star’s @JamesEBriggs reports out our scoop, in a thoughtful and well-sourced piece: “Indianapolis' government offices could move back into the Downtown building they vacated more than 50 years ago. Mayor Joe Hogsett's administration is beginning a process, dubbed Indy 3.0, to reevaluate how — and where — government offices operate. The Hogsett administration will seek guidance from a real estate committee, government officials and the public on how to improve city and county services. Hogsett in an interview with IndyStar said all options are on the table, including selling public buildings such as the City-County Building, the 25-story tower on East Washington Street that has served as city hall since 1962, or even moving the government seat back to Old City Hall at 202 N. Alabama St. The goal is to cut costs and make government services more efficient and accessible.”
KNOWING TRUMP'S FEDERAL PROSECUTOR IN INDY, an important profile by @RyanMartin: "Minkler wields a fiery brand of tough-on-crime rhetoric, his background and politics shaping a viewpoint in step with the vision laid out by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Trump. Trump, who has called Democrats weak on crime, tapped Minkler last year to lead the Southern District of Indiana.
But Minkler also has gained the support of Joe Hogsett, the Democrat mayor who answers to a progressive population and, to some extent, sets Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department priorities. Hogsett, a former U.S. attorney under President Obama, was Minkler's supervisor before becoming mayor."
THE TRUMP PRIMARY, per NEW YORK TIMES: "They are channeling Mr. Trump’s belligerent and profane style of speaking, seeking to capture that essential but elusive quality that matters so much to voters these days — authenticity.
And they wear his hats.
In Indiana, Representative Todd Rokita, a Republican candidate for Senate, proudly slaps on a red “Make America Great Again” cap in a new ad as he promises to “proudly stand with our president and Mike Pence to drain the swamp.”
Not to be outdone, one of Mr. Rokita’s opponents, Luke Messer, tarred Mr. Rokita as “Lyin’ Todd,” an echo of Mr. Trump’s epithet for Senator Ted Cruz, “Lyin’ Ted.” Mr. Messer’s gripe? Mr. Rokita falsely claimed to have received the president’s endorsement.”
PETE FOR JOE FUNDRAISING EMAIL: “My name is Pete Buttigieg, and I’m the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. When I first ran for office, many of the industries that once powered our city were gone, and they’d taken residents’ livelihoods with them. I wanted to bring opportunity back to South Bend, because to me, that’s what public service is all about.
But today, I want to tell you about another public servant hard at work for Indiana: Senator Joe Donnelly. Joe represented South Bend in Congress before serving in the Senate, and his priorities are the same as mine. Joe has his finger on the pulse of working Hoosiers, and he fights for their interests every day in Washington.”
MITCH DANIELS on how the presidency became impossible, to John Dickerson in the latest The Atlantic cover story: “The next successful president is likely to be somebody who concentrates relentlessly on a few well-chosen goals."
SECRETARY OF STATE RACE, PER DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE JIM HARPER: A non-partisan poll released Tuesday revealed that Indiana Secretary of State Candidate Jim Harper has rapidly gained traction with Hoosier voters. The poll, conducted last week, shows Harper and the 7-year incumbent in a statistical dead-heat.
“I launched this campaign to stand up for voters all across Indiana, visiting dozens of counties, and speaking to countless voters concerned with how things are being done --or not done, and it’s clear that our message is sticking,” said Harper. “Voters want to stop being kicked off the rolls and businesses expect more out of the agency they write their contracts with.”
BEST AND WORST WEEK IN INDIANA POLITICS, per Dan Spehler’s must-watch #INFOCUS:
WINNERS: Jim Comey, Gov. Eric Holcomb; James Parker at HHS.
LOSERS: All of us, losing Barbara Bush; Luke Messer; All of the U.S. Senate Republican candidates; Congressman Rokita.
THE COOLING SAUCER
DONNELLY-POMPEO WATCH: North Dakota's moderate Democrat Sen. Heidi Heitkamp became the first Senate Democrat to to express support for Trump's nomination for CIA Director, Mike Pompeo. That puts some pressure on Donnelly to make his position known this week. The two senators often vote together.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST has been running a Twitter ad encouraging Donnelly to support Pompeo.
THE GREEN ROOM
An interview with Indiana’s preeminent historian, Ray E. Boomhower, on the state’s identity in 2o18.
How would you define the tension that seems present at the character of modern Indiana, a mix of both southern and northern sentimentalites? Boomhower: It's the same-old tension John Bartlow Martin wrote about in his book “Indiana: An Interpretation” in 1947—the ‘myth’ of Indiana as a pleasant, rather rural place inhabited by people who are confident, prosperous, neighborly, easygoing, tolerant, shrewd.”
If that's the myth, then what’s the reality? Boomhower: “Well, I sometimes, when I'm feeling pessimistic, tend to agree with Martin's view: ‘A suspicion had arisen that bigotry, ignorance, and hysteria were as much a part of the Hoosier character as were conservatism and steadfastness and common sense.’ Martin warned RFK during his 1968 campaign here: ‘Indiana is a state suspicious of foreign entanglements, conservative in fiscal matters, and with a strong overlay of Southern segregationist sentiment. Hoosiers are phlegmatic, skeptical, hard to move, with a 'show me' attitude.’ Have things really changed in 50 years? I'm really not sure.’”