Importantville: Inside the viral Trump rally photog-block photo—5G for Indy—Kavanaugh hearings start—New anti-Donnelly ad—Indiana as a Southern state?
What's happening—and what's next—at the intersection of politics and business in Indiana.
Days to Election Day: 63
HAPPENING TODAY: The Senate Judiciary Committee begins what is expected to be a days-long hearing to consider the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve as a Supreme Court Justice.
Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-aligned political advocacy group, has “knocked on more than 10,700 doors and made more than 246,500 calls in Indiana on SCOTUS, urging folks to call [Sen. Joe] Donnelly and tell him to support Kavanaugh,” Lorenz Isidro, a spokesman, tells me. It’s all part of AFP’s seven-figure effort to support Kavanaugh’s nomination.
THE OTHER LOCAL ANGLE: An Indiana resident will have a key role as a Democratic witness for the Supreme Court hearing, per a release from Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif): Alicia Baker, “a pastor at Free Methodists Church who was denied access to contraception by a health company because of its religious views," according to the news release.
WHAT’S NEXT: Donnelly’s decision—and a potential hinge moment in our barnburner U.S. Senate race.
THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM, according to one Republican operative I talked to recently: If Donnelly isn’t ahead in the race by Labor Day, a tie goes to Rep. Mike Braun in a red state like Indiana.
IMPORTANTVILLE INBOX: “MIKE BRAUN KICKS OFF “SOLUTIONS TOUR”
From the campaign:
Today, Republican U.S. Senate candidate and Indiana job creator Mike Braun is kicking off his “Solutions Tour."
On the tour, Braun will travel across the state meeting with Hoosiers on the job: talking about the problems they face every day, the failure of career politicians to address those problems, the lessons he’s learned in the ups and downs of running his own business, and how he’ll take those real world experiences to work for Hoosiers in Washington.
The stops:
Tuesday - Sept. 4 - 11am: Fleece Performance - 468 Southpoint Cir #100, Brownsburg, IN 46112 (Tour kick-off event - press conference & factory tour)
Wednesday - Sept. 5 - MasterSpas - 7102 Lincoln Pkwy, Fort Wayne, IN 46804, USA
Thursday - Sept. 6 - Green Leaf Incorporated - 9490 N Baldwin St, Fontanet, IN 47851 (Terre Haute area)
Good Tuesday morning. I hope you had a good Labor Day. Campaign season is now in full tilt. Buckle up. If you got sick of campaign spots during primary season, Indiana is about to get bombarded with a ton of national money. On Saturday, Politico reported that One Nation, an outfit linked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), rolled out a new spot, backed by $1.5 million, arguing that Donnelly supported “illegal amnesty.”
WHERE’S VEEP? Pence has lunch with the president. Later, he'll meet with the United States Travel Association Corporate Chief Executive Officers.THE WEEK AHEAD: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, along with elected leaders, makes an announcement at 9 a.m. at the Statehouse about the agency’s “efforts to accelerate the deployment of 5G—the next generation of wireless service—to all Americans.” On Wednesday, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg does a fundraiser for the Indiana Democratic Party at Nine Irish Brothers on Mass Ave.
In Indiana 4 months ago, I learned how policies its leaders put in place are spurring greater broadband deployment. Tomorrow, I will share how the FCC is building on these grassroots ideas to ensure that every community gets a fair shot at 5G & next-gen connectivity. #CarrTrip pic.twitter.com/deuSoE3dYh
September 4, 2018LAST CALL FOR FREE BEER: There are only a few free tickets left to join Indy’s top journalists for OFF THE RECORD, a night of shop talk, source-building, bowling and drinks for prospective SPJ members and current ones at Punch Bowl Social. This is a free event, with limited space, sponsored by Indiana Pro Society of Professional Journalists. Your first round is on us, and there will be food, too. There are only a couple dozen or so free tickets left. You don’t have to be a journalist—just someone who believes in the cause.
INSIDE THE VIRAL PHOTO OF THE TRUMP ADVANCE VOLUNTEER BLOCKING THE PHOTOG: Last Tuesday, at 10:28 p.m., a familiar name slipped into my email inbox. The sender read: “Barbknecht, Nicolas EOP/WHO (Associate).” The subject line: “***Credential Approved*** Media Logistics for President Donald J. Trump’s Make America Great Again Rally in Evansville, Indiana.”
Barbknecht, an Importantville subscriber, is a familiar face to many Indiana politicos. He’s a former Republican State Committee member and a former Assistant Commissioner of Labor. He married Pence staffer McKenzie Clift in a Fishers ceremony earlier this year. More recently, he took a job at the D.C. consultancy Majority Strategies.
When his name flickered across my screen, I sent him a message on Twitter with a screenshot of the credential. “Whoa!” I wrote, congratulating him on what seemed to be a new gig. He was pitching in as an “advance associate,” he told me.
“This,” he said, “is for the love of the game this week!”
Love of the game, indeed. Perhaps too much love. Perhaps too much passion. On Thursday night, in the heat of the rally, as a protestor was being escorted away, I scrolled over a tweet from the Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Epstein. The man blocking the photographer was Nick.
Twitter exploded. I retweeted Epstein's post, identifying Barbknecht.
My tweet identifying him received 500 retweets alone. It was a little too on-the-nose, some noted, that his bio boasted that he came from the “blocking and tackling of Republican politics in Indiana.” Having found myself at the center of online controversies before, I felt a pang of dread for him. In 2016, he went on the record with Politico that he couldn’t support Trump, and wanted to write-in Mitch Daniels. “I am supporting the Draft Mitch Daniels for President at the convention,” Barbknecht said at the time.
By Friday afternoon, Barbknecht had become a meme. There was Nick, performing an exorcism. There was Nick, touching the finger of God. There was Nick, posing like the Heisman. Over on Facebook, strangers began rifling through his wedding photos, photoshopping them as well. The White House Correspondents Association complained to the campaign, which responded by taking Barbknecht off the road, calling him an “inexperienced” campaign hand. (One Indiana Republican writes me: “Nick was doing advance work on campaigns when Trump's campaign manager was still making a living building Geocities websites.”)
Barbknecht didn’t reply to messages on Friday seeking comment. Another Indiana Republican who knows Barbknecht says the brouhaha was “likely a survival tale that will toughen the lad.”
In a way, the episode seemed an apt metaphor for what it means to join the Trump circus. At any moment, it seems, your association with the administration can backfire or become grist for viral content. While people may not long remember that the advance volunteer was Barbknecht, they’ll likely remember the photo as an icon of the Trump era.
IMPORTANTVILLE TAKE: We’re all one bad decision or moment of passion away from becoming memes.
HOW THE DEMS ARE SPINNING THURSDAY'S TRUMP RALLY, per Michael Feldman:
The front page of the Evansville Courier & Press sums up President’s rally there on Thursday: all Trump, and literally no Rep. Braun. While the president came to Evansville Thursday to stump for Rep. Braun, the trip seems to have failed to move the needle. Coverage of the rally centered on the President’s attacks on the press, his stories about Bobby Knight, or a volunteer staffer’s blocking of a cameraman – not the headlines the Braun campaign and the Republicans were hoping for.
IMPORTANTVILLE READS
BANGERT ON TRUMP/DONNELLY, “Bangert: The Braun + Trump vs. the Donnelly + Trump strategy in Indiana's Senate race”
President Donald Trump came to Indiana Thursday, greeted by a couple of fawning U.S. Senate candidates.
Trump, of course, was all about putting Mike Braun, the Republican challenger and self-proclaimed Trump disciple, in the spotlight.
But Sen. Joe Donnelly, a Democrat looking for a second term in a state that went big for Trump in the 2016 election, was doing all he could to show just how closely he was willing to align with the president – including weaving Trump’s name into his campaign ads.
TALKER OF A STUDY: Indiana’s been called the south’s middle finger to the north. That checks out, according to a new study from Indiana’s Institute for Working Families.
Indiana once stood as a leader in the Midwest, ranking at least average or better than the region as a whole in family incomes, poverty, prime age employment rates, union coverage, and more. But after 2004, wages began to decline alongside policy choices that cut job quality standards and worker voice, weakened the safety net, and limited economic opportunities for middle- and low-income families. Indiana now resembles a Southern state as much as or more than our Midwestern neighbors when it comes to child poverty, low income families, rates of adults with a postsecondary degree, and more.
INDIANA’S HISTORY OF POLITICAL NICKNAMES: from Indianapolis Monthly’s Craig Fehrman:
This fall’s Joe Donnelly–Mike Braun Senate race is looking like a hot one—to the point that President Trump has already coined a schoolyard taunt for Donnelly. “Sleeping Joe” doesn’t quite measure up to “Low-Energy Jeb,” but that’s OK; Hoosier politics offers a long history of better nicknames.
Paul McNutt, the Democratic Governor, was dubbed the “Hoosier Hitler”; Charles Fairbanks, Theodore Roosevelt’s Veep, “Indiana Icicle”; Schuyler Colfax, Ulysses Grant’s Veep, “Smiler”; Benjamin Harrison, “Kid Gloves”; Harrison beat his populist opponent, “Blue Jeans Bill” Williams.
IMPORTANTVILLE TRIVIA QUESTION: What former Mayor of Indianapolis awarded former Marion County Democratic Party Chairman Ed Treacy “Indianapolis Citizen of the Month” for Treacy’s role in capturing a serial rapist? Bonus points for knowing what candidate’s button Tracy wore to the press conference with the mayor.”
THE RULES: Be the first to answer the question in the comments below to win.
That’s all for today. What did I miss? What did I get wrong? Have a good Tuesday. Send me tips at cadamwren@gmail.com.
The Mayor was Greg Ballard and the candidate was Melina Kennedy