The Megathread for All Things Hoosier!

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Howey's May 24 editorial floats former Indiana health commissioner Wayne Myers and State Rep. Karlee Macer as potential Democratic nominees for governor in 2020:

https://www.wthr.com/article/howey-gov-holcomb-and-new-wave-democrats

Gov. Orr selected Myers as health commissioner in 1985 and he made national headlines defending young Ryan White, an AIDS victim from Kokomo. As commissioner, he would work graveyard shifts in the Wishard Hospital E.R. to stay patched in to the street. New York City Mayor David Dinkins named him health commissioner in 1990 at the height of the AIDS pandemic. Myers has also served as executive vice president and chief medical officer at Anthem, and the director of health care management at Ford Motor Company.

With Indiana grappling with a public health crisis involving AIDS, methamphetamine, opioids and heroin, Myers' resume matches up to the challenge. “Everything is connected to health,” Myers said. “It’s the one thing we have in common.”

Rep. Macer is a rare Hoosier Democrat who actually has won a GOP district, which was about 54 percent Republican when she won the open seat in 2012. She won re-election by 560 votes in 2014, by 5,020 in 2016 when she out-performed Hillary Clinton significantly, and was unopposed last year. She’s a former PTO president at Ben Davis High School, and has been active in veteran affairs and with foster families. “I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of serving in many capacities and to have this opportunity is really important,” Macer said. “I’m being very serious about it.”

She’s also willing to bluntly critique Holcomb, particularly after $775,000 of Department Veterans Affairs funds were misspent. “It looks like the fox is watching the hen house,” Macer said.

Neither Myers nor Macer believe a contested primary would be good for the party. “We’re sorting it out now,” Macer said. “I definitely think for Democrats, it’s important for all of us to come together.”

Myers recalls the bitter 2008 primary race between Jill Long Thompson and Jim Schellinger and said of a nomination battle, “I hope there is not, but if there is, I’ll have to deal with it. Most party leaders would prefer a consensus.”

lol, the IN Dems may as well run a circus clown for governor and call it a day.  They should focus their resources on flipping some state legislative seats, defending their 2018 gains, and flipping the AG's office (now that the state school superintendent will be an appointed position).

Who will run for AG?

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Race is Lean R for sure.

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You could of filed to be Lt. Governor Truman and Libertpolitian if you are around 30. 

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You could of filed to be Lt. Governor Truman and Libertpolitian if you are around 30.  

I'm 30!  I turn 31 on July 11.

The problem with IN-05 is that it will be fairly easy to reverse the 2010 boundary changes that made it even remotely competitive in the first place and turn it back into a safe-GOP seat after this round of redistricting. Flipping IN-02 would require a landslide the likes of which hasn't been seen in living memory. As StateBoiler says, people here just don't like what the Dems are selling. (It doesn't help that the state party thinks we are still living in the late 80s.) Democrats won't win here again until the voters change, which may well be decades into the future.

What do you mean by living in the late 80s?  That they still think Southern Indiana is full of Blue Dogs just waiting for The Right Kind of Democrat™ to win them over?

Yes. Donnelly's "vote for me to stop the radical left" pitch from 2018 seemed especially targeted at this (non-existant) demographic.

Donnelly would have been better served with a suburban strategy and much more muscular minority outreach.

It would be cool if you somehow became Lt. Governor of the non existent Myers ticket, because you would be the first Atlas poster to be a Lt. Governor in a ticket, and imagine what the IN DNC would think of you, a libertarian Democrat as a Lt. Governor.

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Hopefully Zody loses in District 40 and resigns after that.