I've said some really good things about Republican Jon Elrod. He's a likeable guy, and he was the only Republican who refused to sign a PR ploy request for a vote on SJR-7, the constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. There's NO WAY that could have been easy in the Indiana House Republican Caucus. Cajones of steel, said I. I've even tried, somewhat jokingly (but also somewhat seriously) to recruit him into the Democratic Party. Rest easy, Republican Friends of Elrod...absolutely NO success in that effort.
What I liked about him was that, while he would work hard for victory, I had the sense that as long as he did things "the right way," he could live with defeat. This was evident during the congressional debates before the special election. He could have bashed Andre Carson publicly, but he didn't. (Yes, I know. He hit him with some anti-gun mailers that weren't flattering, but compared to most scorched earth campaigns, one mailing is tame stuff). Call it gut instinct, but winning almost seemed secondary to running a good race for Elrod. In this respect, he personified the difference between people whose motivation is just "to make money" and those who adopt an attitude that if you do things the right way and do what you love, the money will follow. Elrod's initial run for HD 97 was not Step 1 in a ten-step scripted plan for obtaining the highest possible elective office.
But now it seems the political ambitions have stolen him. Brendan O'Shaughnessy of the Indianapolis Star reports that Jon Elrod has resigned as the R candidate from the 7th District Congressional race so that he can be appointed to fill a vacancy left in Indiana State House District 97, his old district which he had to forfeit to run against Carson in the first place. Elrod knew he had an easier chance to win in HD 97 than in a re-run of the special election, so he bailed out.
To paraphrse Ross Perot, I hear a giant sucking sound. It's Jon Elrod's credibility going into a toilet and flushing itself. (I guess this explains why I never got a response when I e-mailed and asked him to flatly deny the rumor that he was even thinking about this).
I suppose the likeability factor might still be there, but almost everything else is out the window. Jon Elrod went from being the guy who wanted to be your neighborhood congressman to the guy who just couldn't live without representing ANY neighborhood. He could have waited for two years, stayed active in the community and come back, but somehow he wasn't able to withstand either (1) the temptation of keeping and/or expanding power; (2) political pressure from the Republican Party, which had not been an issue before now; or (3) a combination of 1 and 2.
How can any constituent trust that he wouldn't sell them out to preserve his standing? He may have said he takes no pleasure in "walking away from a fight," but he actually sprinted away from it.
One could say that it's unfair for me to be disappointed in a candidate simply because I had an impression of him that turned out to be wrong. After all, he never claimed to impervious to the lure of power.
Yeah, good thing.
