9th District Debate, Round 4 of 4

A variety of news sources have pieces today on the fourth and final 9th District Congressional debate. And yes, there were four debates in all. The first was behind closed doors at WTIU at Indiana University Bloomington. The second was at Indiana University Southeast in Jeffersonville, in an indirect forum. The third was over the radio. The fourth and final debate was held at the Vincennes University campus in Jasper, in front of a live audience of around five hundred.

The Indiana Daily Student (the IU student paper), WCPO Cincinnati, the Seymour Tribune, the News & Tribune (surprisingly fair, given Mann's recent writing), and the Courier-Journal all have articles on the debate.

Your humble correspondent was present. I brought a camera (this time with fully-charged batteries), but photography was prohibited within the debate auditorium so I unfortunately have no pictures.

As was the case at the forum at IUS, both campaigns held rallies beforehand. In a fit of absentmindedness, I didn't take any pictures at the pre-debate rallies. The Hill rally was held on the steps of the courthouse on the square in Jasper. There were perhaps forty or fifty people present, some with Hill signs. Various local Democratic dignitaries spoke.

Several guys from Citizens for Truth were protesting on the square. They were carrying their distinctive black signs with white letters denouncing Baron Hill for being against all manner of social conservative virtues and being for all manner of liberal evils. With them were two people dressed up as Geppetto and Pinocchio, who they renamed "Hillnocchio" and was carrying a sign asking "Is your nose growing, Baron?"

Just as Baron Hill was about to speak, a bus rolled up in the square, and began to disgorge a large number of people. A couple of the Hill supporters declared that they had to be more folks for Baron, and a brief cheer went up. The cheer did not last, as the bus (which said Free Enterprise on the side of it) was offloading a large number of Sodrel supporters. Sodrel's supporters were soon brandishing their own signs, and chanting their own slogans. The Sodrel group seemed quite energized, and the Hill people seemed shocked and perhaps dismayed to see them.

I don't know if there were more Sodrel people present than Hill supporters, but it sure seemed that way. They were certainly louder. The Citizens for Truth group ascended the steps to the courthouse, trying to get in close to Hill. A number of Sodrel supporters also ascended the steps, getting in behind the podium area and waving their signs.

Baron Hill spoke for only perhaps a minute or two after they arrived, and beat a quick retreat. Despite having a microphone and large speakers set up for the rally, he was drowned out by Sodrel's supporters. With Hill gone and his pre-debate rally swiftly disrupted, the Sodrel folks piled back on their bus and drove away.

I've never seen anything like it before. On the one hand, the Sodrel people had the brazen cajones to show up and crash the party. On the other, Hill was shockingly quick to flee when they challenged him.

Across town, on the Vincennes University Jasper campus, the Sodrel people held their own rally. Sodrel had bused in a lot of his supporters from across the 9th District. I counted five buses, but overheard someone (I think from the Hill campaign; he sounded unsettled whereas the Sodrel people were quite proud of themselves) saying that they had nine buses.

It is hard to say how many Sodrel supporters were present because it was cold and windy, and some immediately headed off to the nearby debate hall upon leaving their buses. Even so, there were easily several times as many of them than Hill had at his rally still standing outside when Mike Sodrel came to speak. Sodrel's staff provided pizza for their rally, dubbing it a sort of "debate tailgate."

A few protesters stood near the Sodrel rally, holding signs calling for saving the environment and getting clean energy. I don't think that they were with the Hill campaign, but were instead interested purely in those issues. Several guys from the Sodrel campaign engaged them in a brief debate over energy policy (one protester said that corn was bad for the environment, which makes no sense to me) before a woman walked over and stepped between the two groups. The protesters seemed taken aback by her. The woman, a short cheery lady with short black hair, introduced herself as Mike Sodrel's daughter and offered pizza to both sides. This was unexpected.

Mike Sodrel spoke briefly to his supporters, who chanted for him despite the cold, shouted their agreement, and waved signs. Most people then headed inside the auditorium building to get a seat. The auditorium itself sat about six hundred from the signage, and there was nearly a full house. I would guess from observing outside and the cheering at the end of the debate that half and perhaps more of those present were Sodrel supporters. There were apparently no more Hill supporters present than were at the rally. The balance was made up of locals, students from the campus, and various observing pundits.

There was a scruffy unshaven fellow in a light blue sweater sitting several rows down from me on the left side of the auditorium, typing furiously on a laptop as the candidates spoke. Initially, I thought he was live-blogging the debate, but I can't find it anywhere if he was. Someone later told me he was from the IDS.

As a digression, I was particularly impressed with the Vincennes University Jasper campus. It was much more substantial than I had expected. The idea has been floated to build something similar in Corydon, and it has since become an election issue.

Jim Heitkemper, who is running for reelection as Harrison County commissioner and was with the Sodrel group at their rally, told me that he was quite impressed. The county, he said, should invite proposals for a similar such campus in Corydon from Indiana University, ITT, Vincennes University, and others.

This concludes the pre-debate post. Tomorrow, I will cover the Thrasher in Jasper itself.