Last week I was introduced to several people, over the course of an evening, each time with “and he’s a candidate for the 5th Congressional District ... as a Republican.” The person to whom I was introduced would stare at me.
In the several seconds’ pause I knew, from recent experience, one or more of several thoughts went through that person’s mind: Is this guy a racist [anal orifice]? Is this guy insane? Where did he get that cool corduroy jacket?
Several times on Twitter the reactions, to me as GOP candidate, have varied: Never contact me again. How can you be such an [anal orifice]? are you lying about your beliefs? Are you trying to hurt the Democratic Party/re-elect dt?
I have lived in Indiana for all but a little over two years of my life. This State “went” for dt in 2016. A couple of weeks before the 2016 election I had a hearing for a Client in a very rural county. On one stretch of road, for about half-a-mile, nearly every yard had a dt/pence sign.
dt, the Russian plant who would be king, still has sizeable support here. That support has begun to erode. Some of that support never will disappear.
In 1920 - yes, this is a centennial of sorts - D.C. Stephenson sold securities in an Evansville, Indiana, coal-mining company. In 1921 he joined the KKK. He was such an effective recruiter that, by late 1922, he was Imperial Wizard for the Midwest. Leibowitz, My Indiana, 1964, p. 192.
“Stephenson was drunk with power. He boasted he had delivered the Klan vote to Governor Jackson. Utilities, trade organizations and business groups came to him (usually with money) to get their bills passed into laws. He licensed bootleggers and raided those who didn’t pay tribute. He dispensed Statehouse jobs to his Klan pals.” Leibowitz, p. 193.
Stephenson “left the Socialist Party and registered as a Democrat. He became a Republican as the Klan “principally backed Republicans (because they were generally in control,” but backed Jackson, who was a Democrat. Leibowitz, pp. 192-93.
Stephenson later raped a woman who worked in the office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Madge Oberholzer - in shame even though she was a victim - ate capsules of mercury to kill herself.
Madge Oberholzer’s death bed statement gave solid foundation to an exception to the hearsay rule in Indiana. It also led to Stephenson’s conviction for second-degree murder. That conviction repulsed many Hoosiers. “The white sheets are gone.” Leibowitz, p. 223.
As Leibowitz observes, however: “...some of the same old KKK sentiment is still riding through the sycamores. And there are no white sheets to identify it.” Id.
The anger and bigotry that drove white Hoosiers to join the KKK in 1920 has reappeared in Indiana. Lee Atwater’s “Southern strategy” poached what had been the “Solid South” from the Democratic Party. Some people refer to Indiana as the most “Southern” State in the north.
The simple fact that people have taken control of the GOP as one of the two recognized “major political parties” gives those people automatic perquisites, e.g., there are fewer “signature requirements” for GOP candidates as there are for those who might seek placement, as an independent, on the ballot for general election. I.C. §§ 3-8-6-2, 3-8-6-6, 3-8-6-8.
James Bopp, Jr., is a lawyer with offices in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was counsel at the District Court in the Citizens United case. He is listed as the incorporator in the 2005 Articles of Incorporation “Indiana Republican State Committee, Inc.” of which “The Indiana Republican Party” is an assumed name.
A corporation is a fictional entity. Usually it has no ideology. However, those who can take over a corporation enjoy the benefits of that corporation. Of relevance here would be automatic access to the ballot.
The Committee is set up so tightly that popular control of that non-profit corporation is extremely difficult. However, even more difficult is the task of setting up a so-called third party to “bump” Bopp’s GOP from its Major political party status.
Mr Bopp laid the foundation to maintain control of the GOP once reactionary forces captured it in 2010.
There only can be two “major political parties” under Indiana law: “either of the two (2) parties whose nominees received the highest and second highest numbers of votes statewide for secretary of state in the last election; ” Ind. Code § 3-5-2-30.
At one time the two “major” political parties had conservative and liberal wings. That time ended when the GOP adopted its “Southern strategy.” In Indiana the Democratic Party has been less progressive than its counterparts in other States.
In Indiana one does not “register” as a member of a political party. How a person voted in the last primary is as close as we get to “registration.” There are Hoosiers who regularly vote in the GOP primary who find dt, et al, abhorrent.
In Indiana it is far easier to take over a “major political party” than to start a new party from the ground up. After all, that is what the tea party did to the GOP here in Indiana in 2010. Prior to that set of events in 2010.
I run as a candidate in the GOP primary to take one step toward taking control of the GOP back from forces that have done so much to damage this country, one example of which would be the Citizens United case in which Mr. Bopp counsel at the District Court.
My positions on issues have been held by the GOP in the past: the opinion in the lead case for women’s reproduction rights - Roe v Wade - was written by a Nixon-appointee; the EPA was created during Nixon’s administration; progressive income taxes were Ike’s.
Obamacare was patterned after a Massachusetts program put in place under then-Governor Romney, whose program did not go far enough to protect people. Big Business and concentrations of wealth were anathema to Theodore Roosevelt.
If we commit our military to conflicts, we should do so only under a declaration of war, as required by the Constitution. We should legalize drugs and get government out of our bodies and our lives.
Slavery existed for roughly 240 years after Europeans arrive in North America and was protected for the last (almost) 80 years by the Constitution. The concept of “reparations” is not limited to cutting a check to individuals who descended from former slaves or are indigenous peoples.
We need to build infrastructure, homes, schools, and transportation in areas devastated by the aftermath of two of the greatest evils - slavery and genocide - the USA has practiced.
We need to ensure the Equal Rights Amendment is ratified. Women do not receive equal protection of our laws. That equal treatment needs to start.
There are a lot of things I have omitted here because of constraints of time. I hope I have addressed, adequately, misgivings some might have about why I am running as a Republican.
And I don’t want anyone’s money. I oppose Citizens United. I want people to consider what I have to say. I do not want their money.
In its last years, Rhodesia’s six million white people controlled a country whose population included 26 million black people. The white people clung to power and policies of discrimination far too long. What now is Zimbabwe still tries to recover from those years. The GOP should not make a similar mistake on control.
I am Mark Small, a candidate in the GOP primary for U.S. House in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District. I’m in favor of our election system being as transparent as possible. I approve the content of this blog. Hell, I wrote it.