"Building On What Got Him Here"

The Evansville Courier & Press has a nice profile on Attorney-General-Elect Greg Zoeller:

INDIANAPOLIS — Raised near the Ohio River and tempered by hardball Washington, D.C., politics, Greg Zoeller will be taking the reins soon as Indiana attorney general.

Zoeller will succeed his boss, outgoing Attorney General Steve Carter, and plans to build on Carter's programs of the past eight years. But Zoeller also learned from another Hoosier politician, Dan Quayle.

Zoeller worked for Quayle for nearly a decade when he was U.S. senator and later vice president. Zoeller remains impressed by how Quayle persevered in the face of withering criticism.

"He didn't take it personally," Zoeller recalled. "He almost talked about it in a third-party view: 'You can't let it affect your best efforts to do what you think is the right thing to do.' What I take from it is I'm not going to let it get to me personally. I'm not here to just do what's popular."

Zoeller has been Carter's second-in-command; and when sworn in as Indiana attorney general Jan. 12, he will inherit Carter's consumer-protection responsibilities and the Do Not Call List that Carter promoted to deter telemarketers.

Zoeller, 53, has promised to continue the current attorney general's ongoing lawsuit against alleged racketeering by political figures in East Chicago, Ind. Investigating public corruption is one of the attorney general's duties, and Zoeller suspects the misuse of tax dollars will become more of a problem in Indiana as the economy worsens.

"If you look at the state of the economy, there's probably even more reason to be concerned over those who have responsibility for public funds," Zoeller said. "We do come to office at a time when we've got a major economic crisis in the country. So it's not always about developing new programs, but preparing for what I can envision to be additional challenges for the office."

It's a rare thing to see anyone these days, even Hoosiers, speak well of Dan Quayle. It's good that Zoeller does so; Quayle got a hugely bum rap from the national media and was never able to recover from the damage to his image (sort of reminds you of Sarah Palin, no?).

Congrats to Zoeller; he's a good man and will make a good attorney general.