Importantville: Inside Indy's Amazon HQ2 bid—#INSen state of play—Karen Pence & Secret Service
By Adam Wren and design by Kris Davidson
Days to Election Day: 92
FIRST IN IMPORTANTVILLE: In a snippet from “The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence,” out on August 28, journalists Michael D’Antonio and Peter Eisner report that:
The [Secret Service] agents assigned to the Pences found them generally agreeable, although Mrs. Pence could be quite demanding and didn’t seem to bother with learning their names. She didn’t like the restrictions that came with her husband's office.
But, according to Eisner and D’Antonio….
both Pences showed a remarkable ability to soldier on, despite Donald Trump’s erratic and emotional behavior. Trump was sensitive to being upstaged and fearful of threats to his own power, but he also needed Mike Pence.
The book, along with Tom LoBianco’s Piety and Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House (which is already the No. 1 New Release in Historical Russian Biographies on Amazon!), promises to put Pence’s time in Trump’s White House front and center in the media maw in a way it hasn’t been before.
How will Trump react?
Good Monday morning, and welcome to Importantville. You can nab the Importantville shirt you’re seeing everywhere here.
WHERE’S VEEP? In his West Wing office, where he’ll be on a call with the Prime Minister of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government. Later, he’ll meet with the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
TALKING POINT THAT’S NOT AGING WELL: Here’s Pence on Jan. 15, 2017, on Face the Nation, defending the campaign to John Dickerson:
DICKERSON: Just to button up one question, did any adviser or anybody in the Trump campaign have any contact with the Russians who were trying to meddle in the election?
MIKE PENCE: Of course not. And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.
Trump’s tweet yesterday:
Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics - and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!
August 5, 2018Well, let me tell you two things on that one. Number one, as you know, George, I was in the case at that point, what? A couple of weeks. And there was a lot of information that was gathering and as my colleague Rudy Giuliani said, I had — I had bad information at that time and made a mistake in my statement.
Will Pence now also acknowledge that he had bad information?
A CLARIFICATION ON KOCH NETWORK: Last Thursday, I wrote about the Koch network snubbing Rep. Mike Braun’s race. Lorenz Isidro, with Americans for Prosperity-Indiana, wrote me to clarify:
While we haven’t made any announcement on the Senate race yet, we have been doing a ton of work making phone calls and going door to door across the state to urge folks to call Sen. Donnelly and tell him to support Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, we’ve so far made about 180,000 phone calls and knocked on 4,000 doors in Indiana since Trump’s announcement of Kavanaugh.
Duly noted.
Senate battleground dispatch: state of the race
Joe Donnelly is on an RV tour of the state. Meanwhile, Braun and Donnelly seemed to have been ships in the night in Jasper, Braun’s hometown, for Strassenfest.
I chose to raise my family and build my business right here in my hometown of Jasper, and Strassenfest is always a reminder that we made the right call. Thanks for another great year! #INSen #IBackBraun pic.twitter.com/6AaAFsO9OT
August 5, 2018Appreciate the awesome contingent we had at Strassenfest. Thank you especially to the @MineWorkers retirees who came out to support us today! pic.twitter.com/JWK6s856pK
August 6, 2018Don’t expect Braun to do a lot of press conferences—opining on the shiny object of the day is not in his interest. He’ll be accessible for sit-downs with reporters. Donnelly, meanwhile, will likely continue to hold pressers, though will keep his talking points focused on issues such as healthcare and middle class jobs. And of course his SCOTUS vote will be a moment in the campaign.
What I’m watching this week: Special Election in Ohio’s 12 Congressional District
There are similarities between Ohio’s 12th Congressional District and Central Indiana—a major population center with a Doughnut County, upscale-suburban feel of towns such as Westerville. Results could be a good indicator of the Midwestern mood as a Trump referendum.
The curtain raiser:
From Cleveland.com:
Tuesday’s special congressional election in the Columbus region's 12th District may or may not amount to a referendum on Donald Trump. Still, if the Democratic candidate wins Tuesday, that'll amount to an earthquake in what, for much of Ohio's history, has been unshakable Republican bedrock.
But wave elections don't always translate in Indiana, per Trevor Foughty of Capitol and Washington.
[I]t’s worth noting that the dynamics that often create national waves just aren’t present at the state level. Many times, for instance, the party out of power is aided by a high number of open seats in the U.S. House, such as the 36 open Republican-held seats this cycle caused by retiring members, many of which are competitive districts. Meanwhile, the Indiana House will see only six open Republican-held seats caused by retirements (Friend, Richardson, Beumer, Culver, Washburne, and Baird), most of which are fairly safe Republican seats.
Importantville Reads: Inside ‘Project Wolverine’ and ‘Project Hazel’ edition
IBJ EXCLUSIVE: Emails reveal plans, intense 'war room' effort to lure Amazon's HQ2
As Indianapolis economic development officials worked behind closed doors to develop a pitch to attract Amazon’s HQ2 to locate here, they used a “war room” at a downtown creative agency.
They referred to meetings there by names like Project Wolverine and Project Hazel. At one point, they asked Mayor Joe Hogsett to stop by to film an “Indy love letter” as part of their proposal. And they considered that Amazon wanted to be seen as a “hero” in redeveloping an urban community.
Details of the Indianapolis bid to attract tech behemoth Amazon to build its second headquarters here have so far been hard to come by, as city officials have signed nondisclosure agreements with the company.
But the emails and calendars of top city officials obtained by IBJ in a public records request show a flurry of activity going on behind the scenes—and officials' excitement at months later landing on Amazon’s short list of 20 cities still under consideration.
New York Times: Cities’ Offers for Amazon Base Are Secrets Even to Many City Leaders
Jared Evans, a member of the Indianapolis City-County Council, is proud that the city is among 20 finalists for one of the most coveted prizes in the country: the planned second headquarters of Amazon.
He does, however, have one small question: What financial incentives did his city dangle in front of Amazon?
“What have I been told?” Mr. Evans said. “Absolutely nothing.”
Across the country, the search for HQ2, as the project has been nicknamed, is shrouded in secrecy. Even civic leaders can’t find out what sort of tax credits and other inducements have been promised to Amazon. And there is a growing legal push to find out, because taxpayers could get saddled with a huge bill and have little chance to stop it.
“The only time the public may become aware if the city has promised Amazon incentives is if we win and then we need to get those incentives passed,” Mr. Evans said.
A primary reason for the information blackout is that, in many cases, the bids were handled by local private Chamber of Commerce affiliates or economic development groups that aren’t required to make their negotiations public. Many of the groups are also not covered by Freedom of Information Act or state open-records requests.
That’s all for the day. Thank you for reading. What did I miss? Send me tips at cadamwren@gmail.com