Political Obituary: John Hostettler, 1994-2006

Defeat for the Red Army
From the Indianapolis Star comes speculation that John Hostettler may seek a career as a church leader. The eccentric soon-to-be-former Congressman has said that he will not seek public office again, and his future is a big question mark.

For all of his quirks and his fundamentalist ideas (like implying a link between abortion and breast cancer), John Hostettler was a Hoosier (even, dare I say, American) original. He bucked the Washington orthodoxy and defied his own party on things like Iraq.

He refused to take money from political action committees, which (in my opinion) contributed more than anything to his string of close campaigns and his vulnerability this year. In a political system where money has become so important a factor in getting elected and staying in office, refusing PAC money is a serious handicap even if it is one taken entirely out of principle.

John Hostettler voted not with his party, but with his beliefs. When asked why he voted against hate crimes legislation, Hostettler replied, "What crime is motivated out of love?" One of Mike Sodrel's staffers once told me that Hostettler hid behind a statue at a Washington event to avoid having to encounter President George W. Bush.

We'll not see John Hostettler's kind again any time soon. For a lot of people, they won't miss the fundamentalist Christianity or his more shocking behavior (like trying to carry a gun on an airplane), but I can't help but wonder if Indiana won't miss a politician that refused to accept special interest PAC money or that was willing to buck his own party on issues like approval for the Iraq war. Some Hoosier politicians (and non-Hoosier politicians) of the other party weren't willing to vote against approval for the Iraq war.

Will any of this new crop of Democrats be willing to be a maverick, refusing special interest money or defying their own party on any important vote because of their personal convictions? One can hope, but I doubt it.