Northwest Indiana Discussion

the fallout from the recent elections, races that are brewing for the next cycle, and a potential showdown at the county complex headline the late november issue of the bible of northern lake county politics.

hot off the presses heres issue #2 of the regions fastest growing free internet magazine!

Everyone who knows anything about Lake County politics is already looking ahead to the 2008 race to fill Fran Dupey's County Commissioner seat. Dupey has previously announced she would not seek reelection and the grappling for inside position on the race has been ongoing for over a year.

Though he denies it, County Surveyor George Van Til seems a likely potential candidate. Not denying it so vociferously anymore so does County Clerk Tom Philpot.

The two gave an impromptu preview of what that race could look like this week in the Times newspaper. Philpot was credited by columnist Mark Kiesling of slinging some mud on the Surveyor's new $17,000 dollar swamp buggy. When told the buggy was recently spotted in his driveway Van til responded that "This is just one sick, jealous guy trying to make something out of nothing." The surveyor even justified his purchase saying other county officials are planning on buying some for thier departments as well. (one wonders what the recorder or auditors office would do with such an item).

The apparent personal animosity between Philpot and Van Til has long been rumored in County Circles. Now that its more or less out in the open, expect it to get much more public in the future.

As for the past election every democrat in Northern Lake County was smiling while their Republican counterparts went searching for answers. I dont think anyone expected Senator Frank Mrvan to be reelected by such a wide margin, least of all the Senator himself.

It appears that Mrvan was able to successfully negate any attacks of substance by his opponant simply by bringing up the fact that Chris Morrow had a cloud of uncertainty still hanging over him over the GUEA scandal. Dems should be carefull not to take this race as a referendum on thier local party. They should take it as a referndum that squeaky clean Dem Candidates free from any taint of scandal are safe. But as many of us are aware there are plenty of dem officials who arent so squeaky clean.

As for the other major northern Lake County races Wes Miller could only garner 2200 votes in Hammond despite campaigning for nearly 2 years against the tax reassessment authored by his competitor Linda Lawson. Lawson went out of town for a week just before the election and still won over 60% of the vote.

Furthur complicating Miller's future political aspirations his post election thank you dinner in which he hoped would attract many of his supporters netted less than a dozen in attendance. It will be interesting to see how Miller morphs less than a dozen people in attendance to a sudden wave of support for Mayor, but that is where he seems to be headed based on comments at last weeks City Council Meeting in which he promised change would be on next years city ballot.

an interesting side note. millerite devotee and fellow candidate George Janiec did not attend millers thank you dinner in lieu of a republican party function.

how close did hammond mayor tom mcdermott come to suing local political science professor maurice eisenstien? i guess few will ever know for sure but it appears if he had his druthers he would the lawsuit would already be filed. word is mcdermott is incensed over how his brother, who never has had any hand in any of the controversial land transactions that esienstien has frequently referenced on his blog, was implicated by some has having committed wrong doing. The biggest reason why mcdermott isnt filing suit is because doing so would basically force him to be silent in response if the attacks continued after he filed the suit. and muzzling a candidate in an election year simply isnt a very smart thing to do.

speaking of upcoming elections...a few interesting inquiries have been being tossed around about various district council racea in hammond. someone with famous political influence is hoping to persuade potential opponants to run against current incumbents, which on the surface doesnt make much sense. the likely explanation is this person is trying to gain a foot hold amongst democratic precinct committeeman in hammond in anticipation of a heated county chairmanship fight next year (assuming clay doesnt survive) and is trying to divide them into seperate voting blocks. remember the county chairmanship is likely to be vacated sometime next year. and if the committeeman were bitterly divided it would be less likely that they would vote in unison for anyone.

this would also explain some of the interesting things going on in hammond's 6th district where chico hinojosa is expected to face off against flo decker.

this information is still fresh. so i wont name the master puppetteer behind the curtain just yet. but lets just say he is a familiar name, and anyone who thinks hammond politics dont matter beyond hammond should be looking into this.

not much new on the candidates list this issue. here are the currently announced candidates or very likely candidates.

mayor dem- tom mcdermott repub-none (maybe matt saliga)
1rst dct dem- kalwinsky repub none
2nd dem- salinas repub none
3rd dem higgs, king, parrish repub none
4th dem matosovsky (maybe bryant) repub likely kim poland
5th dem repay repub likely george janiec
6th dem hinojosa and decker repub none

at large dems. markovich, pucalik, matonovich, likely opinker, costa, maybe hamm

judge dem harkin likely prosecuting atty name of salinas (no relation) (dont know the party) maybe jim foster

clerk. dem likely bob golec but not 100% sure

the fallout of sundays story about the healthy kids initiative hasnt hit yet. but one could imagine the mayors in gary and east chicago arent particularly happy that hammond mayor tom mcdermott seems to have exposed their little patronage soup kitchen that was camelflauged by the name. than again both being relatively new to office themselves they may not have known about its existence either. this may leave lake station mayor shirley wadding in somewhat of a pickle, being the only representative on the board still around from the programs inception.

excellent times editorial last week about the need to look at shutting down at least one of the county buildings up north. east chicago has less business in its court than the city of hammond does.

but why in the world would a commissioner ever be expected to shut a building down when it would likely result in cutting their budgets? shut a building down? that would mean less jobs to give away and angry former employees out on political vendettas. it would be political suicide! which is exactly why fran dupey might wind up supporting it. she plans to voluntarilly leave politics and wouldnt have to worry about the budget cut. unfortunately her 2 counterparts arent planning on going anywhere soon. sounds like a pretty good arguement for term limiting the commissioners office if you ask me.

I don't follow politics closely. So I found your post very noteworthy. Keep the good stuff coming.

Oracle, is that "someone with famous political influence" Philpot? I know he backed a few canidates in the last preceint committeeman election last spring. They even unseated a few long time ones.

no. the person im referring too is someone i have almost no connection to whatsoever and hardly know at all.

do you think i'd post something like that about one of my friendly acquaintences?

I'd like to see term limits for LC officials too. Three successful indictments and you're out! lol

sic

I sure am glad they passed that no felon left behind law, or allowed to run for another office again as the case is.

Probably about the only term limits we'll ever see here locally without a strong enough GOP to push for it, assuming they WOULD push for it if they ever got that strong.

Kinda. But you gotta admit county politics seems more like a game of musical chairs sometimes. The players all stay the same and the only thing that changes is the desk the nameplate sits on.

You think he'll get 35% -40% of the vote from McDermott? I guess you don't have as much faith in as I thought.

Not quite and no. He really doesn't want to be involved in the republican party. He prefers to run his own bi partisan group but run for office on the republican ticket.

scott. i dont believe commissioners are term limited. and its the commissioners i was referring too.

also i am not a player in the republican party nor am i a 'player' in any party. i like who i like, and believe in the issues i like. no matter what their party preference is. you of all people should know that by now.

and no...one on one against mcdermott miller would not get over 32% of the vote.

As they say on Farscape Scott, "Go stuff yourself!"

But today I mean that only in the the good way.

Happy Turkey Day to you and to all!!

from wes' mouth? already? i expected him to wait till the council meeting before so sheehan, promesky, and janiec could do wise man imitations introducing hammonds new messaih just wait for my twas the night parody this year! (already working on it)

happy thanksgiving everyone. i for one am thankfull to have so many fellow hammond and regionites like yourselves who do care about whats going on in their local government.