Friday, January 15, 2010

GOP Slating Candidates

Some people have inquired about the entire list of GOP candidates seeking slating at next month's county slating convention. They are as follows:

Sheriff: (Steve Davis, Dennis Fishburn, Bart McAtee)
7th Congressional District: (Carlos May and Rafael Ramirez)
Indiana House District 99: (Dr. David Blank and Bob McDonald)
Franklin Township Trustee: (Todd Colip and Ross Hughes)
Lawrence Township Trustee: (Dino Batalis and Mike Reeves)
Perry Township Constable: (Kevin Bandy and David Taylor)
Apparently, no candidate filed a slating fee to run for prosecutor. Marion Co. GOP Chairman Tom John has basically told us useless idiots in the party that Brizzi Chief of Staff Helen Marchal will have the party's backing if he has his way, but she will not be required to pay the $10,000 slating fee like other candidates. I have no idea who, if anyone, is seeking the other countywide offices. Nobody has contacted this elected precinct committeeperson to indicate their intentions of running for countywide office. It's funny that the only candidate John touted for slating is Marchal. In 2007, John screwed over a couple of the at-large City-County Council candidates who were slated by the party, Ed Coleman and Michael Hegg, by urging people only to support Kent Smith for the four at-large races. Smith was exempted from paying the slating fee because his subprime mortgage business failed. Coleman and another unslated at-large Republican candidate, Barbara Malone, won their respective races without any support from the county party. Coleman later bolted the party to become a Libertarian. I guess the moral to the story is that if you can avoid paying the slating fee, please do so.

9 comments:

  1. "Pay to play" indeed. ;-)

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  2. I thought our Democratic slating convention had some flaws but they are minor compared to this drama.

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  3. I am running for Marion County Assessor.
    Becky Williams

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  4. In a perfect well, slating has a lot of merits. The problem though is that it is easy to manipulate the system. I don't know of any way of fixing the problems with slating so that party leaders don't try to come in and rig the votes. They've been doing it for decades.

    What people don't understand is that Marion County is virtually the only place in the country that employs slating. Most people think this practice is common. It is most assuredly not.

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  5. Thanks for sharing, Becky. Our county chairman omitted your name in the e-mail he sent to precinct committeepersons discussing slating.

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  6. H.D.99 represented by Vanessa Summers is probably the most Democrat-leaning area of this state. Having a GOP slating contest for it is quite peculiar !

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  7. Sorry, I meant "perfect WORLD" not "well."

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  8. Paul, in a perfect world, political parties, at least to the extent that affiliation appears on ballots, would be illegal.

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  9. Slating could be made MUCH better by requiring that only ELECTED committeemen be allowed to vote (with no VPC proxies). That way, mummy-dummies can't be put in as voting PCs at the last minute.

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