Redstate

By youthgrunt Posted in Archived — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The candidates will be Republican, Jon Elrod versus Democrat, Andre Carson.

Andre is the grandson of Julia Carson, the previous Representative who died while in office. Last year he was appointed to fill a City County Councilor seat when another Councilor was found to have not been living in his district. He went on and won the seat (unopposed) in the general election. That is the entirety of his elected office experience. He has precious little experience in any other way, as well. In other words, his primary qualification is his last name.

Jon Elrod spent 3 years in the township government and then won a surprise victory in 2006 against a well established Democrat. In Indianapolis, that is saying something--particularly in 2006. Elrod seems to be a fiscal conservative, but not particularly a social conservative. I don't think he is opposed to social conservative issues, but they are certainly not his priority. He wrote a blog entry at our local conservative blog, Hoosier Access (http://hoosieraccess.com/blog/2007/12/28/fake-republican/) when he was accused of being a "fake Republican" due to his support of protection in the law for gays.

This should be a very interesting election on March 11. I stand by my previous blog that this is a potential pick-up for Republicans. There will be some break in support for Carson because of the lack of experience which leads to the impression that this is an inherited seat. Carson has other issues, such as the fact that he is a member of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan spoke at Julia's funeral and pushed there for Andre being put into Julia's seat. Like Ballard (Republican upset Mayoral victor) the issue may be that the religious black vote stays home rather than coming out and voting for the Democrat.