Voting for Jackie

While I am very interested in pretty much all the national races taking place tomorrow, one that has my particular attention is that of Indiana's 2nd Congressional District. This pits incumbent Joe Donnelly against Jackie Walorski, who has served as a State Representative for the past several years.

Jackie at one time was the director of development at IU South Bend, so I knew her as a fellow employee. Her parents at one time attended our church in South Bend. She also married Dean Swihart, a longtime friend and colleague of Dorene's, who is also a music teacher in the Mishawaka school system (he plays a mean saxophone, maybe him and Bill Clinton could have a jam session if he gets to Washington).

But the time I most remember about Jackie was when we heard her speak at a previous church we attended. Her and her husband talked about their missionary work in Romania. This was long before she was even in the political arena. She spoke of their work and it was by far the most inspiring talk I've ever heard about missionary work overseas. They were very committed and very passsionate about their work with Romanian youth. Hey, I was ready to head over there myself after hearing her speak.

I always said she was one of the best speakers I'd ever heard, so when she decided to throw her hat into the political arena, I figured that was a good fit. Sure enough, she ran successfully for the Indiana Statehouse in 2004. One of her most "controversial" moves was when she missed the vote that could have possibly stopped our move to Daylight Savings Times, which for me is still one of the most absurd controversies in the history of Indiana politics, as you would have though we were talking about seceding from the Union. But she got through that and in 2006 when pretty much every other Republican went down in flames, she was reelected. In 2008, when every other Republican statewide and nationwide also went down in flames, her and Mitch Daniels bucked the trend and stayed put.

After a few years in the Indiana State House, I knew she would someday go national, and this year was definitely the time to give it a shot. Do I agree with everything she's done? Absolutely not, but that's okay isn't it? Not sure why we have to expect 100% personal compliance from all our elected officials. She is definitely not a lightweight (paging you Ms. O'Donnell) and deep down Rep. Pat Bauer probably would love for her to be gone.

My gut feeling, however, is that she will NOT win this year, and that's okay. Joe Donnelly is quite moderate and has actually done just fine. He was at IU South Bend once for an appearance and I happened to walk through before it began and he approached my to introduce himself and was very personable. He's not one that you can pinpoint any big missteps during his 4 years in office. The campaign against him is basically that he's tied to Obama and Pelosi, which I don't think will work for this race (and Donnelly, like any politician who's party is seen as vulnerable, has done a lot to try and distance himself from the party and Obama/Pelosi, which may or may not be good strategy).

While I will cast my vote for Jackie, I think it'll be a tight race but she'll come up short. But she'll be back again. Is a good portion of my reasoning to vote for her personal? Yep, it certainly is, and why not? When you have personal attachments to a candidate, kinda makes it easier to cast your vote that way, whether or not you agree with everything they do.