Coats, GOP locals smell victory Nov. 2

SCHERERVILLE | Local Republicans brimmed with optimism Saturday morning over their party's chances in the upcoming midterm elections and were more than ready for U.S. Senate candidate Dan Coats' keynote message.

"We are on the cusp of victory," Coats told a crowd of about 300 in the Patrician Hall at the fifth annual Reagan Breakfast.

He warned state and local candidates and their supporters, however, to guard against a false sense of security.

"We have a lot to do in 30 days. Victory is not assured by fancy speeches or candidates' commercials and signs. Victory is assured by the people like you, willing to come out of your homes and businesses and neighborhoods to contribute, sign up to work for the candidate of your choice, make sure people are registered to vote, get the candidates messages in the hands of voters and get them out to vote on Election Day," he said.

Coats – who represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 1999, served as U.S. ambassador to Germany and worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. – will face off Nov. 2 against U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Evansville, to replace outgoing Sen. Evan Bayh.

Coats joined Charlie White, Republican candidate for Indiana secretary of state, and Tim Berry, Republican candidate for state auditor, in a plea to get out the vote Nov. 2 to boost the GOP into control of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington and the Statehouse in Indianapolis.

Lake County Republican Chairwoman Kim Krull told the audience she must have appeared crazy last year when she accepted the job as head "of a party that hasn't won a countywide race in decades."

She recounted a long line of Democratic leaders convicted of public corruption including "newly convicted felon Democratic mayor of East Chicago George Pabey," and said others would work "to win more races in Lake County so we can finally have a two-party system and so Lake County can become the premier county to locate a business or family."