To the editor:
Indiana voters have long had a knack for siding with nice guys. Dick Lugar, Evan Bayh, Doc Bowen, Bob Orr and Bill Hudnut — they all thrived on their nice-guy images.
Now, it looks like Joe Donnelly, the Democrat who probably still can’t believe he won a Senate seat six years ago in solidly red Indiana, is working overtime trying to convince Hoosiers he deserves another six-year term because, gosh darn it, he’s just such a nice, friendly, sensible guy!
The accidental senator — as he’s known in Washington — is carpet-bombing us with commercials showing him chauffeuring his RV along the state’s back roads, while looking into the camera and telling us how he wants to reach across the aisle to make government work.
His latest commercial shows him at the tiller, telling us how he broke with his own party to oppose sanctuary cities and voted not once — but three times! — in support of President Trump’s border wall and its funding.
I was stunned to see this because I’m pretty sure that virtually all of nice-guy Joe’s Democrat colleagues in the Senate are adamantly opposed to the wall, and for that matter adamantly opposed to stopping illegal immigration. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand even wants to abolish ICE.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has called the wall proposal a “medieval solution for a modern problem.” He says there will absolutely be no funding for Trump’s wall. It looks to me like Schumer and Senate Democrats have shut and locked the door on wall funding, and thrown away the key.
So what’s going on here? Why is Schumer buying millions of dollars of television ads in Indiana on behalf of a guy who opposes Senate Democrats on a signature issue? Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC, known as SMP, has reportedly already spent more than $4 million in Indiana — mostly for those cheesy ads attacking Mike Braun — and is on target to spend another $3 to $4 million before election day.
We’ll never know for sure, but my guess is that Schumer has assured Donnelly that he’ll never be faced with having to vote for or against border wall funding. Schumer is confident that even after November, Republicans won’t have enough votes to bring the issue to a vote.
Schumer and Donnelly both know that a majority of Hoosiers not only support building a border wall, but aren’t likely to vote for a senator who opposes it. So, with a nod and a wink, Schumer has given Donnelly the OK to walk like a Republican on this issue.
And smiling, happy Joe roams Indiana, telling us he’s strong on immigration — he supports Trump all the way.
Personally, I’d like to hear a little more specificity from Donnelly on this issue. Saying he voted in the past for border wall funding is not enough. I would like to hear him publicly pledge that in the future he will continue to vote for a border wall and its funding, even if he is in position to cast the deciding vote. That would include voting to end a Democratic filibuster.
I have a sneaking suspicion that if Schumer ever really needed Donnelly’s vote against an immigration bill, he’d get it. Follow the money.
And don’t forget last year when Donnelly talked a good game about supporting tax cuts. Yet, when Trump’s whopper of a tax-cut bill came up for a vote in the Senate, Donnelly couldn’t bring himself to support it. He told us his analysis showed that middle class families wouldn’t benefit.
Donnelly’s analysis was either deeply flawed, or Schumer demanded an all-hands-on-deck no vote and Donnelly saluted and said, “Yes sir!”
My suspicion is that if Hoosier voters are looking for a senator who would truly be tough on defending the nation’s borders, nice-guy Joe Donnelly is not their man.
Lawrence MacIntyre
Greenwood
