Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Gregg: "I'm Not A Career Politician"

As John Gregg finally makes official he's now a candidate for governor and not just exploring a run for governor, he wants to clear up one point. "I'm not a career politician," Gregg tells the Star's Mary Beth Schneider in spite of his 16 years as a State House lawaker, including six years as Speaker of the House. Schneider adds, "He pointed instead to his resume as an attorney who has held jobs with two Indiana coal companies, Peabody and AMAX." "It's odd that the Democrat is the one that's worked for two Fortune 500 companies," he said. Gregg omits the fact that he worked as a lobbyist/attorney for the coal companies and has been a registered lobbyist for a big law firm since leaving the State House. And let's not forget that his crowning achievement near the end of his tenure as a legislator was to sneak into law lifetime health insurance benefits for retired lawmakers, including himself and his family.

State GOP Chairman Eric Holcomb gets in some knocks against Gregg. "John Gregg would light up Leno or Letterman," Holcomb said. "But his record as a former speaker of the House is no laughing matter. The stakes are too high to return to the days when Mr. Gregg blew through our state reserves, passed unbalanced budgets and refused to live within our means."

5 comments:

Vox Populi said...

Mike Pence will try to get us to forget about his 12 years in DC when he runs under "Hoosier Values." Welcome to Politics 101.

Can't wait to see your post later on Charlie White hiring Brizzi as his counsel.

timb said...

Two conservatives run against each other and Advance chooses the dim bulb Jesus freak over the populist...and they say politics is dysfunctional!

Gary R. Welsh said...

You obviously haven't been reading this blog regularly, timb or you would know that I have criticized Pence's position on raising the national debt ceiling and his refusal to discuss his policy positions until after the 2012 Republican primary.

timb said...

Again, you read things that are NOT in evidence. You may not like Mike's positions, but it was clear who you will be supporting in the General: the Bible thumping hypocrite over the good ol' boy corporate hack.

Seems to me, this election would fascinate conservatives, since neither candidate can be declared liberal (or even moderate) and both of them are members of the plutocrat party. This is an election that disgusts me, since I am a progressive, but it is basically two Republican primaries and, rather than pick the R over the fake D this far out, it would seem to be a good time to listen to the fake D and figure out which part of Indiana's rich will do better under which candidate.

Marycatherine Barton said...

Gregg and Pence are both career politicians produced by their parties.