From a Hoosier
- By Hilene Flanzbaum
In 2012, I went to a rally for Senate hopeful Joe Donnelly, the Democratic candidate for the Indiana senate seat vacated by Dick Lugar, a Republican moderate that in the primary had been run out of office by the Tea Party candidate, Richard Mourdock. You might remember that name because he and a few other Tea-Partiers had made themselves briefly famous by saying among other things that women who got raped could stop themselves from getting pregnant. When Mourdock’s stupidity made Donnelly’s chances better, the Democratic National party saw the chance to win a senate seat. They sent Bill Clinton to a big public high school in Indianapolis where he would stump for Donnelly. Donnelly won, although he has voted with the Republicans several times.
That day, Bill Clinton could not resist making a prediction about the gubernatorial race between Mike Pence (Republican and Tea-Party favorite) and John R. Gregg who would have been a moderate Republican in any other state – but in Indiana, Gregg (like Evan Bayh before him) qualified as the Democratic one. That race was tightening but not enough: it was pretty clear that Pence would carry it. This did not make Clinton happy. I paraphrase but this is basically what he said: Mike Pence sure is going to get a big surprise if he becomes the Governor. Being a governor, Clinton said, is not like being a Congressman where you get to sit around all day and do nothing but spout your opinions and thwart the opposition. When you’re a Governor, you’re responsible for getting stuff done.
Out of the mouth of Bill. Pence came to Indiana office having no agenda but his congressional one: he had been elected, he believed, to save the world from the godless Democratic party and to make the world safe for White Christian males who were oppressed by gays, immigrants, people-of-color and feminists. His was a war of ideology and had nothing to do with running the state efficiently: for instance, he refused to apply for a grant that would have made it possible for every child in Indiana to go to preschool because he “would not allow the federal government to define our state’s mission”: Or paraphrasing, “I’m not going to let those dirty Democrats tell me what to do.” He would not abandon his righteous cause (or maybe just his political ambitions) long enough to think about the opportunity he was denying thousands of Hoosier children.
And yet as disgusted as my friends and acquaintances were with that decision, across the state it merely caused a ripple. Pence must have thought he was on a roll; he must have thought he could do anything he wanted. Pence was certain, for instance, that the state, especially during his administration, would never permit same-sex marriage. Surprise!
But gosh darn, he was going to make it right for his cronies. He thought of something clever: he would use the RFRA bill, passed by Democrats to establish his aim, that he had stated in his 2010 campaign; i.e., “to make sure gays never had the legal status of heterosexuals.” He must have thought this a brilliant political maneuver, one that he would be remembered for in 2016. But he gambled without knowing the world and the time he was in. Politico.com announced today that Pence’s dreams for 2016 have been smashed into pieces.
I have lived in Indiana for 22 years and have never felt more hopeful about the state’s politics than I do at this minute. Watching Pence get his come-uppance, watching him stammer and stumble on television, watching Eli Lilly and other large companies condemn his version of the RFRA, and the NCAA and the mayor of Indianapolis denounce the bill, a huge rally downtown and the conservative city newspaper the Indianapolis Star run the headline “FIX THIS NOW” has made me optimistic about the state’s future – although I hate to see my adopted city suffer, especially as a result of Pence’s idiocy.
There are several possible analyses of this incident and by my lights, they all are good: perhaps the LGBT controversy in this country is over, and we are seeing the last gasps of it here in this oh-so-red state; or maybe the politics of hatred that the Tea Party promotes just will not fly anymore (the Republican party might take note of this and run a moderate instead of Cruz or Pence in 2016, but as a Democrat I hope they don’t); or the demographics of the state of Indiana are changing so rapidly that it can no longer be counted on as solidly Republican. I don’t know but I would be happy with any or all of these analyses.
One thing I do know for certain: there ain’t a smarter man in American politics than Bill Clinton. He told us so.
Hilene Flanzbaum directs the MFA in Creative Writing at Butler University. Her poem "Nehil'im" appeared in MR 55.3.
