Races in Indiana's eighth Congressional District are always tight. It's one of few House seats in the country that has been consistently competitive over the years, with incumbent Republican John Hostettler winning reelection with 53% or less support in his last three races. This year's race should be another close one, with Democrat Brad Ellsworth, the Sheriff of Vanderburgh County, running a strong challenge. If you need any proof of Ellsworth's strength, all you need to do is ask Hostettler. He might not admit it in so many words, but recent actions speak volumes.
A mere three days after Ellsworth officially entered the race, right-wing blogger Joshua Claybourn approached The Courier-Journal with photos of Ellsworth's 19-year-old daughter drinking alcohol that he pulled from her Facebook site. At his site, he pouted about having to engage in "politics of personal destruction," but argues that, since Ellsworth is a law enforcement official, it's relevant. My guess is that he'd hoped the photos would run with no mention of his name, but when his name came up, he recognized the need for some serious backpedaling.
Rather than dismissing the photos as cheap politics unworthy of Hostettler, the Congressman's sister and spokeswoman Karen Hammonds ran with it, attacking Ellsworth's daughter for posting the photos. To me, that's enough to suggest that it was Hostettler's campaign who sent Claybourn to do their dirty work. After all, Claybourn counts Hostettler as one of his 'famous friends'. And even though Claybourn's taken down his blog's archives and immunized it from automatic archiving and cacheing with a robots.txt file (gee, why ever would he have done that?), a Google search reveals his ties to the Congressman, even in one post bragging about his "sources close to Congressman John Hostettler."
This is how the rightist smear machine works. We saw it up close and personal here in New Jersey during last November's gubernatorial race. Republican operatives cook up dirt and pass it on up the food chain, until it winds up as front page "news" in traditional media outlets. There will be more of this in the Indiana Eighth, as well as across the country.
But it shows that, by stooping to this level so early in the campaign, Hostettler must be scared out of his mind. He's never been what I would consider a safe incumbent and with the momentum behind the Democrats, he obviously feels that it's kitchen sink time. After all, this is a guy who's a really wingnut. He's tried to bring a handgun on an airplane, accused victims of breast cancer of having had abortions, argued for the right of individuals to own nuclear weapons, opposed any and all environmental regulations, claimed that it was Jews "who killed Jesus Christ," opposed funding for post-Katrina reconstruction, and supported the pork-heavy transportation bill. (No word on whether or not he's also a puppy kicker.) He can't run against Ellsworth on the issues. Smear is all he's got.
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