Challenge to Bosma: Answer Your Own Survey

More evidence of the degree to which Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma is leading his caucus to the far right has surfaced in the form of a candidate questionnaire the House Republican Campaign Committee is sending to all prospective Republican candidates in next year's election. The questionnaire was made public in today's Indianapolis Star in a column penned by Matthew Tully entitled, "GOP Wants The Dirt On Potential Candidates". And boy did Tully have fun with it.

According to Tully's account, the 12-page questionnaire contained "as much sex, crime and intrigue as an episode of 'Desperate Housewives'". Its cover warned that the questionnaire was "Confidential" and for "internal use only" Tully reported. Among the personal questions asked were:

• Have you ever had an affair?
• Have you ever had children out of wedlock?
• Have you ever been late with a child support payment?
• Have you ever been divorced?
• Have you ever had a restraining order placed on you?

Of course, Speaker Bosma does not just want to learn the deepest and darkest secrets about his party's potential candidates. He tossed in a few of the public policy issues that Christian fundamentalists want to impose on candidates like a litmus test, including gambling and gay marriage, which Tully suggests are "aimed at weeding out candidates".

The questionnaire assures political candidates that these questions were not just dreamed up: "Each of these questions is being asked because of a previous campaign experience. According to the GOP committee's executive director, Tully reported that he said the forms weren't meant to exclude candidates. "The goal," Gentry said, "is to help candidates understand all of the issues that can come up in a campaign."

As Advance Indiana has reported in numerous past posts, hypocrisy abounds when it comes to candidates proselytizing to the rest of us about their view of moral righteousness, while they privately indulge in the very sins they publicly protest. Based on past experience, Speaker Bosma has every right to know that he's not sticking his neck out in supporting a candidate with his hard-earned campaign dollars for a candidate in next year's election who cannot stand up to public scrutiny. He's simply doing the due diligence any of us would expect our financial advisor to undertake before recommending an investment to us.

But of course, we know that the true test of a good leader is to lead by example. And who better to lead by example than House Speaker Bosma. Advance Indiana challenges Speaker Bosma to demonstrate to all potential House Republican candidates that he too can withstand the public scrutiny his questionnaire indicates that they most assuredly will face if they are nominated by their party in next year's election. And to prove to them he can withstand public scrutiny, Speaker Bosma should answer all of the questions posed by his questionnaire, sign it under penalties of perjury, and make his responses available to the public. It seems only fair. He has aggressively pursued a "morally righteous" legislative agenda on behalf of Christian fundamentalist so it is all the more important that he be able to live up to the high moral standards he has personally chosen to set.

So what say you Speaker Bosma? Can you live up to the same challenge you expect your party's candidates to live up to? We look forward to hearing his response.