Why Ron Klain is tweeting about Indiana's Senate race
For POLITICO's West Wing Playbook, I got the inside scoop on a tweet that sent Hoosier Democrats and Republicans heads spinning.
INDIANAPOLIS – RON KLAIN is still charting his post-White House path. The president’s former chief of staff is reconnecting with family following the death of his mother and employing a WME agent as he fields options from cable gigs to book deals.
But Indiana Democrats have another pitch: come home and run for Senate in 2024. After all, the state party’s erstwhile rising star, PETE BUTTIGIEG, decamped to Michigan last year to be closer to husband CHASTEN’s family. That left his former campaign manager and pal MIKE SCHMUHL — now the leader of the state’s Democratic party — without a national figure and fundraiser on his bench.
“Ron Klain would give Hoosier Democrats an incredible shot in the arm and a legitimate chance to win the open Senate seat,” said KIP TEW, the former Democratic Party state chair who helped turn Indiana blue for BARACK OBAMA in 2008 and was one year behind Klain at North Central High School in Indianapolis. “He would be an outstanding candidate, but more importantly, he would be a terrific United States senator and help make the institution a better place.”
The pitch to Klain has been made privately too. BARON HILL, a long-time friend and former Blue Dog Democratic congressman from southern Indiana, called this past Monday to ask him to consider running.
AROUND IMPORTANTVILLE
What else I’m hearing from around the Hoosier State.
Christina Hale, the associate administrator office of communications and public liaison in the Biden administration, is taking herself out of the running for Senate or governor in 2024, she tells me.
