Indiana Primary: 7th District

The 7th Congressional District of Indiana is the district that encompasses the bulk of Marion County, and by default most of the Indianapolis Metro area. While the major suburbs of Indianapolis fall into the 5th District, the actual city/county area itself falls into the 7th (which used to be the 10th district).

During my admittedly short time in Indiana, the 7th District has essentially been locked up by the Democrats, being held by Julia Carson until her death in ’07, and then replaced by her grandson in a special election earlier this year. Things have changed a little bit though, as in this past mayoral election, the Democrat incumbent was ousted, and the Democrats lost their majority in the City/County council as well. That wrinkle creates a new dynamic for the 7th District general election, and even more so in the Democrat primary, as the word on the street is that now this district is considered “at risk”.

Looking at the primary, it’s pretty much a total mess. The two front-runners according to the Indy media are Andre Carson, the incumbent and grandson of Julia Carson; and David Orentlicher, who is currently a Indiana General Assembly rep for the 86th House District. Andre won the seat during the special election, which allowed him to serve out the remainder of his grandmother’s term.

Taking a closer look at the candidates, either one of them winning the nomination for the seat will pretty much be a bad deal for Indiana. Andre Carson has endorsed Barack (strike one), voted directly down party lines during his brief tenure in Congress (strike 2), and is also endorsed by former Mayor Bart Peterson (steeeee-rike THUHREEE). Actually, he kind of reminds of Obama in that he doesn’t appear to have any kind of substantiative opinions on anything, and rode his grandmother’s name into Congress.

On the other side of the Democrat D7 primary, we have David Orentlicher, who during his time in the General Assembly has tried to 1) Kill gun shows and 2) overturn Indiana’s no-preemption law so that Marion country could pass gun control laws.

In essence, we have two awful candidates that the Democrat party has produced for the 7th District – I don’t like either of these guys and certainly don’t want them representing my state, even if it’s not my district, in Washington, DC.  I will enthusiastically support whomever the Republican party produces to oppose either of these guys.