When I twittered Friday night that two GOP Ward Chairman had been fired as Ward chairman (Liz Karlson and Chris Smith) I figured it would cause a tempest in a teacup type stir in the blogosphere even though most people in real life would care less because of the total inside baseball nature of the event.

Despite that the entire matter is still worth commenting on.  Now I know what I expect from some of my critics  “Abdul is in the pocket of Tom John and his Masters at Ice Miller so we shouldn’t listen to anything he says even though we read his blog several times a day and follow his Twitter feeds.”  So now that I’ve said it for you, you don’t have waste their breath.

Should Liz Karlson (full disclosure is also a friend) and Chris Smith been fired as Ward Chairmen?  To be honest, I don’t know.  What I do know is political parties Republican, Democrat and Libertarian are all entitled to run their organizations as they see fit and have to live with the consequences of their actions.

Democrats have to deal with the fact that their County Chairman is always at odd with the State party and that may have cost Linda Pence a U.S. Attorney nominee.  Libertarians had a Holocaust denier working for them and recently let them go.

Now if you’re one of the people who think the Marion County GOP is going down the wrong road, then might I suggest you stop whining and crying on blogs and go do something about it.   I find it ironic that blogger Gary Welsh goes on ad nauseum about Tom John (another unhealthy fatuation) in, but when it came down to the Chairman vote this past March, Welsh stood there in the room and voted for John just like everyone else did not stand up to offer any dissent.  I guess it’s easier to take pot shots from your computer rather than grow a vertebrae and be a real leader in your party.

But I digress.

If you don’t like the way your political party is run.  Take it back or go start your own.

Just remember, consequences have actions and that works both ways.  There will always be struggles inside political parties for power, some just occur more publicly and each side takes its victories and its lumps.   Third, inside baseball political fights are like snow blowing across the Interstate, unless it’s a blizzard, for most people it’s insignificant and they could care less.

I went to the post office today to pick up passport applications for my fiance and me; we honeymoon in St. Martin later this year.  While there,  I was reading through some paperwork and noticed something all the people who keep harping on this Barack Obama birth certificate nonsense, might want to check.

The current requirements for getting a passport include proving you’re a U.S. Citizen which includes providing a birth certificate.

This is my favorite section.

When applying for a U.S. passport in person, evidence of U.S. citizenship must be submitted with Form DS-11. All documentation submitted as citizenship evidence will be returned to you. These documents will be delivered with your newly issued U.S. passport or in a separate mailing.

• A previously issued undamaged passport.
• A certified birth certificate issued by the city, county or state.
• A consular report of of birth abroad or certificate of birth.
• Naturalization certificate.
• Certificate of Citizenship.

*A certified birth certificate has a registrar’s raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar’s signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the registrar’s office, which must be within 1 year of your birth. Please note, some short (abstract) versions of birth certificates may not be acceptable for passport purposes.

So assuming the President has a passport, which he does because his file was accessed without permission (along with Hillary Clinton and John McCain) the odds are he submitted his Hawaiian birth certificate to the State Department and they signed off on it and would have caught it if it was a fake; so odds are the President is natural born citizen.

And assuming these rules were not in place when Obama applied for a passport years ago wouldn’t his place of birth be in his passport file?  And wouldn’t that information have gotten out by now if he wasn’t born in the United States.  This is the problem with conspiracy theorists, they tend see everything except what’s staring them right in the face.

You want to argue against Obama?  There are plenty of real issues out there. Use health care reform, cap and trade,  spending, deficits; something for real.  Otherwise you guys just look like a bunch nuts in search of squirrels.

And by the way, if the Clintons couldn’t beat this guy, what makes you think you’ll have better luck?

Happy hunting.

A couple items popped up on my radar screen Wednesday that probably didn’t get much attention in the local media, so here they are now.

Marion County Sheriff  Frank Anderson is reportedly rebuilding his office’s gang unit and traffic branch.   I’m confused as to why Anderson is doing this.  Most of his enforcement duties were transferred to the Mayor’s office last year when Ballard took over IMPD. However, if Anderson does have the manpower to duplicate the functions of IMPD, maybe his office doesn’t need as much money and can have his budget cut as the Administration looks to cut $20 million to balance the budget.

And just so you don’t think I’m picking on Democrats today, 5th District Congressman Dan Burton has gotten my attention as well and I can see why so many people are running against him.

Burton has agreed to co-sponsor a bill that would require candidates to show their birth certificates to prove their citizenship.   In other words, Burton has joined the Obama “not really a citizen and why won’t he show us his birth certificate even though if we saw it we would call it a fake”  crowd.   A spokesman for the Congressman says the bill is a good idea because  “If candidates provided that information to the Federal Election Commission you wouldn’t have all this hullaballoo. You don’t want to needlessly expose presidents to crazy conspiracy theories.”     No offense but from the stories that have been running around the 5th District for years regarding Burton you would think he would be the last person talking about birth certificates.

Okay, time for the analysis and breakdown of the Scott Schneider victory.  There were a number of factors in play in addition to hard work and communicating with PCs.  Here’s my interpretation of them.

1. Time!   Normally candidates have about 30 days to get organized.  Because of the special session, Schneider had a lot more time than most outside challengers to communicate with PCs.
2. HC/MC Rivalry.  I gave a speech last Friday to the Carmel Rotary club and I was asked about SD 30 and how that would come down.  My prediction at the time was that it would be decided in Hamilton County as the Marion County PCs would be split.  Working in the Schneider camp were State Senator Mike Delph and Cindy Noe; two well-established fixtures in the HC.
3. Anti-Establimentarianism.  Let’s be honest, most PCs are an independent lot and there always a certain amount of resentment towards the establishment (be they Tom John, Greg Ballard, etc.)    This is not a new thing with Vaughn,  It happened with Ike Randolph back in ’06.  It also happened last year in the Greg Zoeller/Jon Costas race for Attorney General.
4. Ideological Shifts.  A good political friend pointed out that the Indiana Senate delegation from Central Indiana is fundamentally more conservative than Indianapolis proper.  Brent Waltz, Greg Walker, Mike Delph, Jim Buck and now Scott Schneider, each replaced a more “moderate” candidate.

So put all these in alignment and you have a Schneider win.   It will be interesting however to see what happens in redistricting next year.  There is talk that Schneider’s District may be redrawn to be further north and encompass more of Hamilton County and the southern portion of his District will be redrawn into Greg Taylor’s District.

Scott Schneider is now the new State Senator for District 30.  He won 61-38.

Schneider

Public Safety Director Scott Newman officially resigned this afternoon. Mark Renner, Deputy Public Safety Director, will fill in the interim. Newman will head up a search committee to find his replacement. You can hear the audio below.

mayor-ballard-newman

Precint committeemen in  Indiana State Senate District 30 will gather tonight to select a replacement for former State Senator Teresa Lubbers who went to chair the state’s higher Education Commission.

The nominees for her spot are current City-County Councilor Ryan Vaughn, former City-County Councilor Scott Schneider, former State Representative John Ruckleshaus and attorney Chris Douglas.

Each candidate has been working the District and from what I gather just about contacted every PC at least twice.  I honestly think this race will come who gets the most supporters there.   But here’s a brief handicap.

Ryan Vaughn

• Strength – Strong record on public safety and taxes as Councilor.
• Minus – Long “special election” season has given opponents time to build momentum.

Scott Schneider

• Strength – strong ideological conservative base.
• Weakness – misread tea leaves and left Council in 2007.  Could have easily been Council President had he stayed.

John Ruckelshaus

• Strength – long history as a small businessman and government service.
• Weakness – hasn’t held public office since 1992.

Chris Douglas

• Strength – experience in economic development.
• Weakness – moderate Republican who may not be able to connect with socially conservative wing of the GOP.

I’ll be Twittering from the caucus tonight.  Feel free to follow me.

Quite a few items from city hall tonight.  Here they are…

1. Public Safety Director Scott Newman reportedly is stepping down later this week.  Sources say the reasons are health-related.  Newman has Parkinson’s Disease.
2. A measure that would have banned panhandling at city intersections will have to wait for another meeting to pass.  It only mustered 14 votes, 15 is needed to become law. Republicans say it was necessary for public safety, Democrats said is restricted free speech.
3. City-County Councilor Bill Oliver voted against several appointments tonight for the Equal Opportunity Board.  Since none of them were African-American, Oliver said they weren’t diverse enough, even though out of the four appointments there was a woman, gay and Puerto Rican.
4. Libertarian Ed Coleman plans to introduce an ordinance requiring all city contracts to be put on-line.  This would be the second ordinance Coleman has introduced since switching from Republican to Libertarian in February.
5. And although it hasn’t gotten much publicity in the news, watch for Lawrence Township to be one the next Townships to go the consolidation route.

I have to admit I was a bit surprised at the verdict Friday in the Doris Minton-McNeil trial.  While I wasn’t sure if she would be convicted up felony battery, I thought she might get convicted on misdemeanor resisting arrest.   But as you know all four charges were dismissed.

Judge Annie Christ-Garcia did not issue any opinions regarding her decision, which I think is a mistake.  Christ-Garcia is a newly elected Democrat judge, Minton-McNeil is a Democratic Councilor.  Her attorney, Marc Sullivan, ran against Virgina Cain in 2003 as a Democrat and there were several Democratic members of the Council at the trial.  And remember, the Council controls the purse strings of the judiciary.

Now I’m not allegding anything untoward, but I think in a situation like this and under these circumstances, an explanation would probably go a long way to letting the the public know that justice was administered fairly and properly.  So the next time an elected official goes before her, Democrat or Republican, the public will have confidence in decisions coming from her bench.

I had a busy Saturday so there’s not a whole lot to chat about this morning, but I can tell you the following.

• According to IMPD, arrests and curfew violations were somewhat up for the second Saturday of Indiana Black Expo.  While more than 2008 there not as many as 2007.   One of the arrests however was the second in command of Code Red, one of the more problem local gangs here in the area.
• There’s a question as to whether the votes are there on the City-County Council to pass a hotel tax increase to help fund the Capital Improvement Board.  I’m told a recent meeting between the major players got pretty tense.
• In addition, although Democrats may be holding out on their votes, there’s talk that if the tax increase doesn’t go through, there next set of CIB layoffs will all be union members, a key Democrat constituency.
• If anyone is surprised that Judge Annie Christ-Garcia let former City-County Councilor Doris Minton-McNeil off the hook shouldn’t be.  Apparently McNeil also released Brenda Taylor, a prostitute involved in the stabbing death of a local man; she claimed self-defense.  Taylor had been arrested on charges similar to Minton-McNeil.  Prosecutors have not decided whether charges will be filed in that case.
• The race to fill the spot in Senate District 30 continues to be competitive and more bizarre.  I’ve discovered one of Republican Ryan Vaughn’s biggest critics is more motivated by an unhealthy infatuation with him than legitimate public policy or philosophical differences.   If it were a movie I would call it “The Bromance that Could Never Be.”  And we’ll just leave it at that.

Enjoy your Sunday.