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| Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard Seeks Re-election |
Indiana Barrister run by Republican Abdul Hakim-Shabazz has always been supportive of the Mayor. It's been long rumored that Abdul is cashing in on the current administration, which would explain why he always appears to be an echo for anything the administration comes up with. I don't know if Abdul is paid by the Ballard folks, but he certainly seems to have lost any pretense of independence when it comes to anything relating to the Ballard administration.
Up until Washington Street Politics was created there didn't appear to be any other Republican blogger in town who regularly supported the policies of Republican Mayor Ballard. WSP appears to have been created exactly for the purpose of giving the Mayor more support in the blogosphere. It happened to coincide perfectly with Robert Vane leaving the Mayor's office and starting his own communications firm. I'm not convinced that Vane is behind it. He certainly denies it and the writing doesn't always "sound" like Vane. Since the blog's author insists on being anonymous, it could well be that the blog was created by the Ballard campaign or the Marion County Republican Central Committee.
It speaks volumes about how much Ballard has alienated conservative Republicans that an anonymous Republican blog had to be created to defend him.If you look at blogs run by Republicans - my own, Advance Indiana, Indy Student - there is rarely a positive word uttered for Ballard's policies. Hoosier Advance rarely mentions Ballard and when the blog does it is often not in a favorable light. Republican blog "Frugal Hoosier" used to support Ballard before eventually abandoning him. Now the successor to that blog, Aiming Higher PAC, sticks to state issues. Another pro-state Republican blog, Capitol and Washington, rarely talks about Ballard. Criticism of Mayor Ballard has even crept into a few out of town Republican blogs, such as Hoosierpundit.
Why don't Republican bloggers support the Mayor? I think the Republicans who blog do so because the issues matter to them. Most of them believe in a conservative philosophy. The problem with the Ballard administration is that conservative political philosophy seem not at all important. The policies of the Ballard administration from the outset has seemed totally driven by the rewards of being in power, e.g. lucrative city contracts for political contributors, tax breaks and subsidies for well-connected companies (i.e. corporate welfare), administration officials positioning themselves for cushy private sector jobs, etc. Whenever being fiscally conservative and looking out for the interests of taxpayers interfered with profiteering off of being in power, the Ballard administration always chose profiteering.
Republican bloggers keep apprised of the issues and that's why they criticize the Mayor who appears to be the ultimate RINO. If Republican bloggers who know the issues have turned on the Mayor, how long before conservative Republican voters in Marion County, once informed of such things as the giveaways of our tax dollars to political insiders and 100 plus tax and fee increases, do so as well?