Brian Howey: Daniels’ final campaign finds policy in the political pipeline
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Next Wednesday, Gov. Mitch Daniels will travel to
Evansville and with delighted local officials will break ground on the I-69
extension to the state capital. It is an event that has been talked about and
promised by Govs. Bowen, Orr, Bayh and O'Bannon for more than a generation. And
Gov. Daniels will tell the dignitaries present, the news media and the general
public that the original start day had been 2017.
"The governor is a good leader in tough
times," said his chief of staff Earl Goode, Wednesday morning as he and
campaign manager Eric Holcomb and communications director Cam Savage provided
details of the governor's final political campaign. "He's been willing to
make the tough decisions." Holcomb added, "He's embarked on changes
and applied them to problems that have existed for decades. The fact is we are
creating jobs in a region where many states are not."
"The word 'tradition' is not an
operational word," Goode said. Major Moves - Daniels' controversial $4
billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road - has sped up I-69, U.S. 31 freeway, the
Ohio River bridges, Fort to Port and the Hoosier Heartland Corridor – all road
projects that had languished for decades. INDOT will have spent $1.3 billion
for 2008, an unprecedented sum when a typical year's budget is in the $650
million range. "I think people realize the dirt is moving all over the
state," Holcomb said. "That's why folks are more optimistic here than
nationally."
The Daniels campaign is confident heading
into the summer stretch that includes county 4-H fairs and the dog days of
August. His polling shows a 14
percent lead while Jill Long Thompson’s polling has him up by 7. The Daniels’
campaign will report $3 million cash on hand by the July 15 financial reporting
deadline, with its media advertising campaign fully paid through August
(including the Beijing Olympics and the Democratic National Convention). It is
a campaign where the governor writes all the speeches and all the ad scripts.
"He writes it all," Holcomb said.
He is the architect of what goes on in his
administration. An example is the recent Central and Southern Indiana floods
when Daniels bypassed a trip to Japan and within three days had set up relief
centers where flood victims found the Red Cross, FEMA, DNR, INDOT, BMV and
insurance agencies all operating out of a central relief site. Marines and
Indiana National Guard personnel were deployed ahead of flood waters aiming for
Southern Indiana. One FEMA official saw something he had never witnessed
before: a sitting governor riding to a disaster assistance site on his
Harley-Davidson. "The concept came from the governor," Goode said.
"He recruited, put people together and made it all happen."
Holcomb said the Daniels’ campaign would
prove that "good policy is good politics." Of the 60,000 jobs
promised in unprecedented $15 billion economic development investments over the
past three years, some 30,000 jobs are still in the pipeline. "We're in
the 90 percent range of what was committed," Goode said.
Honda is in the process of hiring 800 to 900
workers this summer, with 1,000 on the rolls by the end of 2008. Medco in
Zionsville will be up and running next year. Real Cool Foods in Cambridge City
is hiring. The IBM, AT&T and Sallie Mae call centers are up and running,
each adding 1,000 jobs. Goode said that auto parts suppliers are beginning to
set up in what he calls the "triangle" between Greensburg, Princeton
and Lafayette, where a second Toyota plant is in the works.
Holcomb added that economic development
prospects are even brighter for the final six months of 2008 than they had been
in the previous two years when Indiana landed Honda, Medventure, Dreyfus, the
coal gasification plant and the BP expansion at Whiting. "We believe we'll
have another record year," Holcomb said. "We don't have to spin it.
The ground-breakings are occurring," including the big one when the Colts
meet the Chicago Bears (thus capturing about 90 percent of Hoosier pro football
fans) at the opening of Lucas Oil Stadium on Sept. 7. This is the stadium that
Daniels was able to convince local elected officials in Boone, Hamilton,
Hendricks, Hancock, Johnson and Shelby counties back in 2005 to pay for with a food
and beverage tax in another unprecedented expenditure of political capital.
Commerce Secretary Nate Feltman said the
state has completed 80 deals this year, compared to 72 in 2007, though the job
levels are 600 to 700 below last year. "We will catch up and surpass
that," Feltman said.
Since 2005, Indiana has attracted or
expanded 44 corporate headquarters with 8,300 new jobs and $704 million in
investments. That includes nine in 2008 with 1,957 jobs and $89 million in
investment, with three more in the wings. On Wednesday, CNBC called Indiana the
"most improved state for business," jumping 13 places on its list to
13th in the nation.
On the heels of this, Daniels will roll out
a specific agenda for the next four years, similar to his 2004 Roadmap.
"His outline of his second term will be as clear as it was in '04,"
Holcomb said, noting that education will be his centerpiece. Asked for details,
the Daniels’ crew deferred to the governor.
Howey is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com.
