My Man Mitch Your Battered Bride Pledges Fidelty, Sticks and Stones

My Man Mitch: Your Battered Bride Pledges Fidelity, Sticks and Stones

Can Mitch’s Donors and Family groups Donors Referee this Fight?

By Christopher Mann

It’s really hard to think that My Man Mitch is ever more brazenly becoming somebody else’s Man, yet, that is exactly what appears to be happening. I’ve provided three “exhibits” of treachery that give me big time pause, but the ultimate kicker was a brochure produced by a gay rights group in Indianapolis and circulated at a recent Gay Pride event in Indianapolis in which the Mitch Daniels campaign took out a paid advertisement extolling diversity, etc.

In the same publication was a picture of two naked men having sex. No genitalia was exposed, so maybe we are to anticipate the “but it was art” defense (oh, how I hope not) but who knows.

Ok, so we’ve known this ever since Eric Miller lost the primary in 2003 and Mitch subsequently courted the Indianapolis gay community and pledged to continue a pro-homosexual employment policy which not only odiously gives special rights to homosexuals but odiously includes this thing called “gender identity” philosophy. This stuff means, in effect, that the state cannot discriminate against employees who declare a gender identity for themselves other than their biological gender. Gender itself is not defined in the policy, leaving open the possibility that one does not even need a sex change operation, per se, to become a different gender. Some guy can, therefore, just “feel” effeminate one afternoon and since he has the permission to define his own gender identity, he is entitled the legal right to walk in a lady’s restroom.

Whacky, far-reaching possibility, one might say? Ok, then why didn’t the Gov even bother to fix it? (“Fix” it). The policy is an executive order which requires Mitch and only Mitch to fix. Because the GLBT(…) community doesn’t want it fixed. I believe that they want it open, broad, and widely interpretable so that some future judge can be armed to inflict as much collateral nihilism on the family institution as possible.

So what is a conservative to do? Two things: (a) Stand for truth and (b) play the best hand of poker politics in our present Corinthian era.

Stand for Truth

The Gov needs to hear is that conservative organizations, especially among the family leaders like Indiana Family Institute, American Family Association of Indiana, Eagle Forum, Indiana Right to Life, and the like, are called to serve a prophetic role. Their role is to report the truth to their constituencies with a clear conscience before God. Their job is not get Mitch elected. The MMM team may be thinking, “where will the religious right go?” Admittedly, that’s a reasonable political calculation, but it doesn’t take into account every variable.

Play a great hand of poker

Pain is still a relevant factor here. And here’s what I think must happen from now through November of 2008: if 40 lashes would resound to the death of the Mitch Daniels for governor campaign, the Family would probably agree to stop at 39 and therefore balance their roles as prophetic voice and pragmatic political advocate.

The question then becomes, “Mitch, do you want to stop at 5 lashes from the Family now, or would you like 34 more over the next 18 months?” It’s true that we won’t likely have a better candidate to go to than Mitch between now and Nov 08; it’s equally true that Mitch can’t win if he’s pumping iron on page 15 opposite two naked men having sex with each other on page 16 of some homosexual publication. In other words, we won’t win without MD and MD won’t win with the Family. So, what’ll it be? 5? 18? 29 lashes?

To be sure, it takes two to tango. Mitch has 39 lashes he can dish out without killing the Family and his own campaign as well. Mitch can call in chips among political and donor friends from around the state, many of whom are the same donors to the Family groups, and say, in effect, “continuing to support these groups is to continue funding people who have crossed the line and are going to cost us the election. Send them a message now to stop what they’re doing.”

That could very well hurt, as it doesn’t take a very big pebble to rock the boats of these family groups whose annual budgets range from less than $50,000 to $1 million.

A casual review of AFA, IFI or RTL’s 990s will show that these organizations (a) don’t abort babies, (b) don’t get tons of tax payer money and are therefore (c) dependent on the generosity of conservative donors who are quite well versed in the art, science and valuation of Republican partisan politics.

If a Democratic governor takes over with an R Senate and a D House, much of our gains over the past few years could well be lost. And, thanks in large measure to Mitch, those gains are big:

• The state budget is in the black. (Yes, we now hardly own anything, but Mitch was faced with few other options. We’re in the black, and that’s better than being in the red).
• Faith-based and community-based solutions are working for Indiana. Welfare recipients are better off and prisoner recidivism rates are on their way to nadir levels thanks to the former Hudson Institute brain-in-chief and Oaks Academy founder who profoundly understands and champions the value that faith-based groups offer better solutions for less money (and sometimes even free).
• Pro-life bills have been finally passed by this legislature and signed by Mitch. One could argue that we’d like to see a governor who is not only a supporter, but an advocate, but credit is still due with My Many Mitch for moving the ball in the right direction for Hoosier unborn babies.
• Businesses are coming to Indiana. The nuking of the Indiana Department of Commerce and the creation of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation was a brilliant and very productive move by Mitch, and Indiana is very blessed for it.

Thus, the stakes are high: we need four more years of successes like the above, and I see no other governor on the horizon who can make tough decisions like this. I frankly like having a governor who is clearly wealthy enough to not need the Governor job nor its pension and who has the demonstrated policy brilliance to understand faith- and community-based solutions to social pathologies.

That said, few things make a businessman/donor tremble more than seeing his investment go south because of political temperaments.

Therefore, the three sub-parties of the Indiana Republican Party need to think through Mitch’s homosexual policies pretty carefully, because a fight is looming. Mitch and the Family need to cross the finish line together in Nov 08 looking like a rather congenial and proper married couple or they will otherwise cross the finish line in Nov 08 together with black eyes, missing teeth and nail marks.

I have to say that I prefer the former, but if it means successfully preserving and championing truth at the expense of political expediency, I think most of Indiana’s Family Advocates are (reluctantly) ok with the latter. I am.