I had dinner last night with some politicos from Hamilton County. Apparently earlier this month a poll was taken of more than 400 Hamilton County residents on the Presidential and Governor’s race.  The results.

President

• John McCain – 53%.
• Barack Obama – 47%.

Indianapolis Public Schools have really stepped in it this time.

Not only is it being reported that the school district admitted to hiding plans to close four of the schools with enrollment under 300 students listed on the November 4 referendum construction ballot which would spend $278,000,000 of your hard earned property tax dollars, but I found out this evening that the District’s notified its principals about the potential school closings on about this on October 16.

And think about this.  The deadline to submit the referendum (which lists the schools by the way) was August 1.   And I think it’s safe to assume the IPS administration had been thinking about this for a while.  And even if they weren’t sure about enrollment, the Election Board didn’t ratify the ballots until October 1, so you think someone could have said something by then.

More damning details are slated to be released tomorrow, but think about this.

A school district with declining enrollment and increasing costs and not the best reputation in the world, is floating a plan to spend nearly $300,000,000 of your money to repair schools that it was planning to close and not tell you about it until it was too late.

I don’t know who’s advising Dr. Eugene White on all this, but they should be fired!

Zogby is reporting today that the race in Indiana has swung back into the McCain-Palin directions.

A survey of 473 likely Indiana voters reveals…

• McCain – 52.8%.
• Obama – 42.3%.
• Undecided – 4.9%.

Word is the local branch of the NAACP is filing a federal lawsuit against the Marion County Board of Elections seeking a declaratory judgment that no citizen will be denied the right to vote if their home has been foreclosed and they have been forced to move.

Of course there has been no evidence of anyone in Marion County being denied the right to vote because of foreclosure.  Actually, under Indiana law unless you move out of your Congressional District you can still vote at your old address.  

Rumor also has it Democrats are going to try to accuse Republicans of using the small claims courts to force evictions on residents so they can be disenfranchised.

I find it interesting that the NAACP is filing a lawsuit over something that has not occurred, nor has there ever been a recorded victim.  Meanwhile, back in May 2007 the organization did nothing to protect or restore the voting rights of at least 3300 citizens whose voting rights were disenfranchised because their polling places never opened.

I just can’t figure out for the life of me why the NAACP is pretending to be relevant now when they never have been in the past.  (Insert sarcastic laughter here!)  Of course these are some of the same people who sued over Voter ID and couldn’t prove anyone had been disenfranchised.

So I guess their legal strategy is that as long as there is no proof of disenfranchisement, a lawsuit is in order.  Go figure.

Here are examples of some those moments in politics when things don’t go quite the way they were planned.

The Obama campaign wants to charge the press for access to its election night party in Chicago.

The RNC apparently spent quite a few bucks on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe and hair.

The Jill Long Thompson campaign misspelled the campaign Treasurer’s name in its latest ad.

A woman  convicted of stealing from her church last year managed to make it as an election judge in a voting center in Marion County.  She was discovered by the judge who sentenced her who notified the Clerk who notified the local GOP who notified the woman her services were no longer needed.

Oh well, I guess it just goes to show that nobody’s perfect.

A new poll is out by Public Policy Polling regading the major races here in Indiana.  Here are the results.

President

• Barack Obama – 48%
• John McCain – 46%.

Governor

• Mitch Daniels – 57%.
• Jill Long Thompson – 36%.

Attorney General

• Linda Pence – 42%
• Greg Zoeller – 39%

Superintendent of Public Instruction

• Tony Bennett – 38%
• Richard Wood – 36%

The poll of 1,411 likely voters was taken October 18 and 19.  It has a margin of error of 2.6 percent.

Here is JLT’s new ad that’s going up on TV in some parts of Indiana.  Her campaign offered supporters the chance to get a sneak preview for a $25 contribution.  Would you have forked over the cash or have waited to have seen it somewhere on television?

Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson this week called the property tax caps passed by the Legislature “gimmicks”.

Thompson made the statement while participating in a candidate forum in Indianapolis on Sunday.

She said she supports capping how much property taxes can increase, but she says the caps passed by the legislature were a bad idea.

Thompson reiterated her call to reform Indiana’s tax code, but was short on specifics.

I have a message into House Speaker Pat Bauer to see if he agrees with Thompson’s assessment of the bill his chamber passed 3-to-1.  

I’ll let you know what he says.

Politico is reporting Barack Obama is coming to Indianapolis on Thursday.  There are no details on the visit except it will happen in the morning and Obama will head to Hawaii to visit his 86-year old grandmother who is seriously ill.

Update: Two seconds after I put this up the Obama campaign put out an official advisory.  He will be here Thursday morning talking about the economy.  No time and location yet.