Sanders To Announce Candidacy Today For 4th District Congress

[IndianaGreen]

Sanders To Announce Candidacy Today For 4th District Congress

Tuesday, March 2, 2010



Professor David Sanders is going to officially announce his candidacy today at Indiana Democratic Party Headquarters for the 4th Congressional District seat soon to be vacated by Steve Buyer. The announcement is set for 4:00 p.m.

The Purdue University virologist has twice run for Congress before in the heavily-Republican district losing both times to Buyer. While he lost in 2004 and 2006, Sanders did a tremendous job shining a light on the several controversies around Buyer well before the issues finally came to a head with the Frontier Foundation mess. Nels Ackerson picked up the mantle in 2008 and did a tremendous job raising money and continuing to do good work against Buyer.

Sanders would make a good Congressman, but he is one of three candidates running on the Democratic side. IT Manager and former Republican Tara Nelson is listed by the DC Political Report as a candidate as is Pastor Mark Powell. Neither is as well-known as Sanders, who beat a very difficult primary candidate, Rick Cornstuble, in 2006. He also survived a tough primary in 2004.

On the Republican side, it's quite a mess. The DC Political Report lists 14 candidates running for the seat. That's right...14!! The main GOP candidate is, of course, Indiana Secretary of State Self Promoter...er...Todd Rokita. Other candidates include State Senators Brandt Hershman and R. Michael Young (who, by the way, did not win the Marion County portion of his district).

I predict that it will be Sanders vs. Rokita in the fall. Will it be a good race? I still think it's uphill for Sanders, but he's a dogged fighter, and there's no question that Rokita will have to spend some time and effort on him. Buyer tried to ignore him once only to find Sanders having a news conference holding a milk carton complete with the Congressman's picture on it. He asked, "Where is Congressman Buyer?" Buyer often refused to debate Sanders as well. I think it is because Sanders is much smarter than him, and he was afraid to be made to look stupid. Sanders definitely can hold a room's attention.

http://indydemocrat.blogspot.com/2010/03/sanders-to-announce-candidacy-today-for.html

[caraher]

1. I think you're right

The sad thing is that where I am, the local newspapers are truly awful. They never covered the Buyer "charity" scandal, they never pointed out his ducking debates. The first article on the upcoming race I saw was today, and it was a profile of some Republican named Eric Wathen - who was here campaigning with nothing more to say than he doesn't like taxes.

I wish Sanders the best, but we'll probably just get stuck with whatever crawls out of the Republican primary field.