Mike Sodrel on the Move?

In the past couple of days, I've started to hear a new rumor among the Indy insiders and among a few in the 9th District.

The rumor goes like this: Mike Sodrel isn't going to run for Congress. People wanting him to run for Congress just got him to do an event at someone's house before he spoke at a Tea Party in Corydon. Since no announcement happened at either event, he's obviously not running.

Let's consider those things for a moment.

First of all, the organizers of the Corydon Tea Party made clear when they invited Mike Sodrel (and everyone else) that there would be no campaign speeches (and certainly no campaign announcements) at the Tea Party. They also strongly indicated (both to me and to Congressman Sodrel) that they did not want a partisan event and they preferred that the event itself not get overshadowed by any sort of campaign announcement that day.

Mike Sodrel honored their request. In fact, at the end of the Tea Party, the organizer allowed candidates for elected office to come up in front of the crowd (but not speak). A lot of people pushed Mike to go up and join them. I was standing nearby, and Sodrel told them, "No, I promised them that I wouldn't do anything like that today." He didn't say, "I'm not running."

He said that he wasn't going to announce that day, probably out of respect to the Tea Party organizers and to honor of the promise he made to them. It would have been very easy for Mike Sodrel to have walked up and joined the candidates at that moment. Certainly, many in the crowd (by their earlier reaction to his speech there) would have cheered him doing so.

But Mike Sodrel also would have gone back on his word to those that organized the event, and his sudden announcement would have potentially overshadowed the event itself. The stories would have been "Sodrel announces Congressional campaign at Tea Party" not "500+ gather at Tea Party to protest Obama agenda."

Second of all, if you were at the lunch for Sodrel on Saturday or the Tea Party he spoke at later that same day, you probably saw a familiar face with Mike Sodrel. That would have been Diego "You're the MAN!" Morales, who has been a volunteer or a paid staffer with every Sodrel campaign since 2004 (and maybe even 2002).

When Sodrel was elected in 2004, he singled Diego out at his victory celebration a few weeks after the election. "You ran, Diego," he said. "You RAN." Diego was with the campaign in 2006. And when Sodrel decided to run in 2008, the first person who joined the campaign was Diego Morales.

Since the last election, Morales went to work with Todd Rokita, and then went on a trip to Africa. The first place he showed up after his return was with Mike Sodrel at Lori Davis' farm this past Saturday (Lori Davis worked on all four of Sodrel's campaigns and worked in his Congressional office), and he rode there with the Sodrels. And he rode with them to the Tea Party, too.

I don't find that a small coincidence. I also don't find the recent visits back to southern Indiana of some former Sodrel campaign staffers and advisors (some of them currently living out-of-state) to be a coincidence either.

Long-time readers of this blog know that I don't believe in coincidences in politics.

I don't know what Mike Sodrel intends to do. But I also know that, if he was running, Diego Morales would almost certainly be around. And Diego Morales is back around again.

I also know that Sodrel would be talking with former campaign staffers and advisors if he was serious about running again. And some of those very people have been back in southern Indiana visiting with old friends lately for some reason.

Like I said, I don't believe in coincidences.