Loading ...
By BRIAN A. HOWEY
MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. - During the Major Moves debate in 2006, Gov. Mitch Daniels described it as the "jobs bill of a generation." Upon passage, then House Speaker Brian Bosma predicted it would put 130,000 Hoosiers to work.
This past year, with a recession looming, Daniels talked of how Major Moves might have made Indiana "recession proof."
Fast forward to Friday, always a great day to drop bad news. And last Friday there was bad, bad news. Indiana’s jobless rate .jpg)
jumped from 5,9 percent to 6.3 percent in July. This reflects the hemorrhaging of jobs in the auto/RV sector and the bleeding there is just beginning. The 1,400 Monaco jobs at three Elkhart County plants haven’t even hit the rolls yet. Those plants close in September. Kokomo is bracing for the loss of 600 white collar jobs at Delphi Corp. The Kokomo Tribune reported Monday: Town hall meetings between Delphi Corp. executive Jeff Owens and salaried employees today will reveal the fate of hundreds of white collar jobs throughout the company’s electronics and safety division. Long a mainstay of the Kokomo economy, the salaried engineering positions at the division’s Kokomo headquarters are expected to be significantly reduced.
As has happened in previous campaigns, the dynamic is sharply in place here. There are dual takes on the jobs scenario. Each week, the Daniels administration trots out new, pending jobs, as he did last week at the new Nestle plan in Anderson. And with each plant closing in places like Nappanee and Peru, the Thompson campaign points out the need for a "new direction."
Friday’s jobless rate was a golden opportunity for the challenger. "This is more devastating news for Indiana’s working families and it further illustrates the need for a new direction and new leadership in this state," Thompson said in a statement. "Month after month Indiana continues to lose good-paying jobs while this administration does little, if anything, to stop it. I firmly believe that with the right leadership and right priorities we can turn this economy around. I am running for governor because I want to work to rebuild this economy and make Indiana more competitive by overhauling our tax structure, reforming our health care and education systems and working to bring economic opportunity and good-paying jobs back to every Indiana community."
The Thompson campaign points out the jobless jump in July was the second largest increase in the nation, trailing only Alaska. Compared to July of 2007, when the state unemployment rate was just 4.4 percent, today’s news is even more startling.
It appears that Daniels’ "island" in the Midwest is getting smaller and smaller as the new tide of lost jobs rises due to fuel prices. "We’ve still got the lowest jobless rate in the Midwest," said Daniels campaign spokesman Cam Savage. He said the June flooding and the American Axle strike that has idled other auto workers have played a role into the spike. He said that over the long term, more and more of the jobs announced over the past year will be coming on line. He pointed to the I-74 interchange at Greensburg outside the new Honda plant as an example of how Major Moves helped create jobs outside the construction and building trades. Savage said he did not know how many Major Moves jobs are going at this point. Daniels announced almost 500 new jobs in Ligonier, Indianapolis and Noblesville over the last 24 hours.
The irony here is that Daniels’ former employers - the Bush-Cheney Oil Presidency - and their lack of any cohesive energy policy could come back to haunt this administration. Without such a policy, the state’s recreational industry, RVs and boating, are in perilous condition. Sailing from Chicago to Michigan City last Sunday I found a peculiar scene on a magnificently sunny day with highs in the low 80s. There were virtually no gas-powered watercraft out in the big lake. Most of the high powered boats in Michigan City’s harbor have essentially become stationary summer homes and party scenes. It costs too much to run them.
Driving south from Michigan City through the little hamlets of Westville, LaCrosse, San Pierre, Medaryville, Reynolds (the bio-fuels town) and Monon brought another sight: dozens of SUVs, muscle cars and big pickups sitting in the yards of homes and businesses with "for sale" signs in their windows. It’s the reason why Toyota will no longer make the Tundra pickup in Princeton. It’s why Monaco, Keystone, Newmar and dozens of other small RV and auto parts manufactuers are closing.
Daniels will obviously point in the coming weeks to the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment that will employ Hoosiers in the coming years. He will need some variation of the messages another former boss, Ronald Reagan, employed in 1982 ("Stay the course") and 1984 ("It’s morning in America") to convince Hoosiers the state is on the right track, even if there is pain now.
The governor can point to places like Reynolds and the dozen or so ethanol plants, southwestern Indiana’s largest coal gasification plant in the, and the billion-dollar investment in Whiting’s BP refinery as evidence that the state is not standing still.
As for the impact of Major Moves, Daniels explained in March 2006, "Change is difficult. Sometimes you can tell in advance when change is going to be contentious, when they disturb a very deeply invested special interest. Others can surprise you. I don’t think of roads and jobs and hope for our economic future is partisan at all."
In a letter to legislators in 2006, Daniels wrote, "Your vote for the Major Moves roads and jobs plan was, undeniably, one of those rare events. In his "Profiles in Courage," recounting moments of legislative heroism when people summoned the bravery to do what they knew to be right, at risk of criticism or even defeat, John Kennedy wrote: The true democracy, living and growing and inspiring, puts its faith in the people - faith that the people will not condemn those whose devotion to principle leads them to unpopular courses, but will reward courage, respect honor and ultimately recognize right. Years later his brother Robert said progress requires change, and ‘change has its enemies.’"
In 2008, time could be a geater enemy than his opponent.
Daniels will be attending the Republican National Convention for the first day and a half in September. He is currently meeting with newspaper editorial boards across the state.
The Thompson campaign is still seeking field help at this late date. The campaign has an advertising on the Grassroots Solution website seeking "several" field organizers. The campaign is also working on a text message campaign, something the Obama campaign has mastered and the Daniels campaign expects to use extensively. The Thompson campaign has scheduled a press conference for this afternoon to discuss "privatization" and mismanagement of state government.
Daniels and Sen. John McCain have leads outside the margin of error in the latest SurveyUSA polls in Indiana. Daniels leads Democrat Jill Long Thompson 52-38 percent. In the presidential race, John McCain had a 50-44 percent lead over Barack Obama in Indiana. Compared to eight weeks ago, Obama lost 3 percent and McCain picked up 3 percent. The Aug. 16-18 poll was taken of 900 Indiana adults, 779 were registered to vote. Of the registered voters, 645 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely voters in the election. McCain had leads of 48-44 percent in Southern Indiana, 61-33 percent in Central Indiana and 51-44 percent in the Indianapolis metro. Obama had a 49-44 percent lead in Northern Indiana. In the governor’s race, Daniels is getting 52 percent of those planning to vote for Barack Obama. Both share a message of being change agents. Daniels leads 48-42 among females, 56-33 percent among males and leads 59-27 percent in Central Indiana, 69-22 percent in the Indianapolis metro, and 51-40 percent in Dennie Oxley’s Southern Indiana base. Thompson leads 51-39 percent in Northern Indiana. Nationally, Reuters-Zogby has McCain lead 46-41 percent. "This is a significant ebb for Obama," said pollster John Zogby. "Conservatives were supposed to be the bigger problem for McCain. Obama still has work to do on his base. At this point McCain seems to be doing a better job with his." Both polls could have implications into Obama’s vice presidential search. Daniels’ big lead portends to a victory in November. If Sen. Evan Bayh were to be nominated and win the vice presidency, Daniels will likely pick a Republican sucessor. It also shows that Obama has much work to do in Indiana despite three rounds of ads and 19 offices open around the state. Bayh could be in a position to help deliver the state’s 11 Electoral College votes which could be critical on Nov. 4. In the Aug. 19 Gallup Daily Tracking, Obama was leading McCain 45-44 percent. CNN’s Poll of Polls had Obama leading 46-43 percent. The next Howey-Gauge Poll will be released at the Indiana State Museum on Thursday, Sept. 4 as part of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce’s annual Hobnob. The Howey-Gauge Survey will be taken after Obama’s DNC speech and McCain’s selection of a runningmate expected to be announced on Aug. 29 in Dayton. Daniels and McCain are shown here at a town hall meeting at Emmis Communications last February in Indianapolis. Horse Race Status: Leans Daniels
Tags: Jill Long Thompson, Mitch Daniels
Related posts
This entry was written by and posted on August 21, 2008 at 11:47 am and filed under HPI Weekly. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
Post a comment(Latest is displayed first) or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.